


Overjoy

by morehappylove



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - High School, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, High School, Louis plays soccer, M/M, New York City, Romance, Senior year, Soccer, Some Humor, anything could happen, dont be fooled by who tops who bottoms, harry is a hipster, idk what else to put here ok bye
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:40:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 76,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4410638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morehappylove/pseuds/morehappylove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life's not always epic, Harry soon found out. Most people don't wake up to a spectacular existence - there were times his days could only classify as eventful if he accidentally poured orange juice instead of milk into his cereal bowl. Still, he likes the life he lives. Harry Styles feels perfectly content with his nights out with friends, kisses from pretty boys, beers brought to him by his fake ID and the sight of a new hair dye on his sister every three weeks. Of course that, in order to be perfectly content, he needs to ignore a few things, like the fact he misses the hell out of Louis Tomlinson and the realization that, for an ordinary boy like him, staying in love could be the biggest adventure he would ever live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'd just like to point out that English is not my first language, which makes this story a translation. I'm very sorry for any incidental grammar slip-ups (hopefully that aren't many). Feel free to correct my mistakes; it's okay by me. Regardless of that, I hope you enjoy the story and have fun reading it! It was written with lots of loooove.  
> Harry and Louis are the only 'familiar' names you'll find in here. There is a reason for that but I don't wanna make this note super long, so maybe I'll explain it at the end? Hope it's ok!  
> Bye for now,  
> Lou x

Rupert's words were dancing on Harry's stomach. Why did breakups always turn out to be that huge piece of shit with a cherry on top of it?

"Harry, I don't think we're right for each other anymore. I've been talking to Nico for a while now and, you know, I simply can't deny I kinda feel something for him. I'm sorry for doing this at school, but going out only to break up would be so, so awkward. What do you mean you don't wanna break up? We've been together for a year and a half now and it's crystal clear that we can't stand each other anymore. We're just bullshitting our way through the whole thing. C'mon, we can't even remember what's each other's order at a coffee shop, so, please, don't pull this face and make things any more difficult..." _And then the cherry:_ the problem's not you, it's me. I've changed. Be reasonable. Blah, blah, blaaaaaah.

Then Rupert gets out of that locker room that smelled like piss without a glimpse of second guess, leaving the boy with puppy green eyes to the mercy of the showers' dripping noise. Before he can stop himself, tears begin to madly roll down his cheeks, and Harry ignores all rational fragments that insist on screaming inside of him.

He wouldn't be freaking reasonable. Harry spent a year and a half of his life comfortably summarizing his life – especially when it came to his scholar routine – to Rupert and Gabby, and now the blond simply pushed him into a locker room and ended all they had. A year and a half relationship ended in ten minutes, for God's sake. And it would've been eight if Rupert didn't have to keep objecting to Harry's heartbroken expression.

What was he supposed to do now? Be on Gabby's trail even more than he already was, overcome his lack of will and make new school friends? Get used to the fact that he wouldn't have anybody to call and ask to pick up his drunk self from some club and drive him home, or to join him at a coffee shop in a completely inappropriate time? Throw away the shitload of photos of them and tell his friends he was now single? No. Fucking. Way.

The whole situation sucked and not only Rupert was dealing with that too easily, but he also wanted Harry to do the same.

Well, that he couldn't, and even though crying inside a smelly room didn't help much, that is how Harry would deal with things right now. Unless showers could be as vile as teenagers, he believed the coast was clear enough for him to cosplay Allie in the Notebook. At one point or another, between American History and Algebra II periods, in which he should be right now, Harry would stop crying, hopefully before drying like a sunburnt star-fish.

By the way, screw them. Them, little ponies, cupcakes with strawberry icing, couples holding hands on the street, dogs wagging their tails around and everything cute.

That was the problem with endings or semi-endings – you know, when someone manages to break up with you even though the relationship only existed in your head. They've always made a mess of Harry's brain, and he could already feel his ambiguous will to kick something while eating bunny-soft Twix growing inside his chest. Since he couldn't get any relief, he just stayed there, smelling chlorine, sweating, with his face burning, trying to control his own increasing anger.

He felt the urge to ask to get back together with Rupert in that very moment even though he knew, deep down, that it wasn't what he wanted. At the same time, he wished to be possessed by Regina George's spirit and call Mrs. Williams, a rather hypocritical puritan, and snitch on Rupert for using her entire stock of lube just so Harry could stick his dick up the family's golden boy's ass, someone absolutely righteous, straight, naïve and with _such_ academic potential, as if he hadn't spent the entire year cheating on tests – and most times Harry was the one helping him.

I don't care, Harry thinks, shrugging to himself, and his mind paraphrases Tom Hansen: _Skank. Whatever. I'm over it._

And then, two seconds later, Harry goes back to crying his heart out, so much it makes him want to pluck his eyes out of his face, because they were so hot and wet. On top of that, the edges of his mouth were curled down in a painful way.

There were so many things happening all at once that the boy forgot to keep in mind life's essential law, which Murphy had kindly brought to people's attention: nothing's ever so bad that it can't get worse.

The soccer team – and Harry's official bullies – enter the locker room, taking the boy by surprise. He had no idea they had practice today, otherwise he wouldn't have stayed in there. However, there was no way of knowing that, of course, because unlike most students there, Harry couldn't care less about when those assholes were close to a game. He takes a deep breath. Once more he had nowhere to run.

_Thanks for that too, Rupert._

It doesn't take more than twenty seconds for them to start making fun of Harry as usual, but right after they notice his crying face and his effort to dry the tears with the back of his hand, bursting into laughter. The sound's so loud that it probably reached China.

"Shit, look at Harry!" one of the boys, Chad, is the first one to detach himself from his group of brainless friends, ruffling Harry's wavy brown hair, who grumbles and pushes the blond's hand away, which looked more like a giant waffle, to be honest. "Crying like the little girl he is!"

"'M not crying," Harry mumbles bitterly in response, feeling more tears almost streaming down the edge of his eyes. He moves away from the captain of Jerk's Squad and heads towards the door that, what a surprise, was blocked by them all.

"Didn't anybody give you your pacifier today, Harry?" the boy can tell apart Louis Tomlinson's voice among howls and exaggerated laughter, as if his joke was that good. Harry tries his best not to roll his eyes.

Three light-haired, tall, muscular, nearly identical dudes go towards Harry, pushing his head down as if to make him suck on them, and his urge to cry grows stronger, because he's feeling angry and humiliated. He snorts, and multiple jokes about where Harry's mouth must have been follow. Eventually he ends up whimpering, which shocks the team enough to give him a few seconds to escape.

Harry is already out there and their slow-ass minds are much probably still trying to process the fact that he lost control in front of them, and, as usual, failed to defend himself. How could him, after all? He was a 6 feet tall guy with only a few apparent muscles and no friends at school besides Gabby. No one would help him beat them up – not that he really wanted to try, since he had no fighting skills, unless playing Super Smash Bros on Wii counted for something.

The boy with the sweet green eyes leans on the parallel hallway lockers, inhaling deeply. If there was an actual reason to be assaulted like that, it could only be the result of an extremely heavy karma, because, in that very life, he found it hard to even be rude to someone, and as incredible as it might seem, that made him be misunderstood, taken for gullible. Perhaps he was a little.

Harry had always been the type who would take some time to open up, and his Seattle schoolmates seemed to be more tolerant to that, maybe because most of them had known Harry since kindergarten. They were curious and patient enough to unravel Harry's personality little by little and find the goods in him. In New York, however, people seemed to be more hostile and much less interested in what was behind his apparently shy personality, except for Gabby.

She'd been by his side through every high school year, from the first one to the last – they were almost done with it – and introduced him to his few good friends in New York, maybe eight or so. Not that numbers actually counted for something because they were really amazing and that was enough for Harry. Gabby would always get on a soapbox about how Harry should let more people in, let them see how captivating he could be, but it wasn't like Harry was dying for a show-off. He was fine without all the attention, really.

His parents had moved to NY to combine business with pleasure. Harry didn't quite understand what his father, Adrian, did for a living, but he did knew the career had lots of Math involved and that it would be extremely positive for the finances to take a bite of the Big Apple. When high school started for his older kid, at the age of 14, the man decided to take a job offer in the city that never sleeps, thinking that if Harry was really sure about Law School, which he seemed to be, it would be great if he could get used to New York and then get into Columbia. The boy had always been a dedicated student and his parents believed that being accepted there wouldn't be an issue to the boy.

They chose Chelsea to live in and, once they read online that that neighborhood was seen as a gay redoubt in the 90s, they got concerned it could influence Harry in any way. The thing is that Harry was already gay ever since he could remember, which he ended up having to bring up. It was funny having to explain that the Madison whom he'd been talking about for weeks was, in fact, _Mason._ It was okay moving out from Seattle, though, because the Mason-thing was barely a thing.

Isabella and Adrian got overcurious for a few weeks, but it all went okay. He had never been humiliated or mistreated by his family, not even once. Being homosexual was as ordinary to his parents as it was to himself.

Harry only had to date one girl to understand that wasn't what he was into, and a very long time to understand that his sexuality didn't come with a data package. Being gay didn't mean he had to be expansive, know a lot about pop-music or give great relationship advices.

He did not hide his sexual orientation from anyone, simply because he never felt like it, even around the soccer team. He liked guys and that was not an embarrassment at all. He never associated the fact of not having friends in school to his sexuality; he suspected it was all on his personality, to be honest, and the only thing he could do about that was live with that little eventuality.

Although his chest was burning in a strange way and he was willing to shrink somewhere and not deal with anyone else for the rest of the week, Harry pulls his phone out of his pocket and texts Gabby, hoping she was experiencing some superheroine syndrome kind of thing. She might not save the world, but she could definitely try to save Harry's day. If that wasn't happening, it would be nice if she was simply willing to get out of American History class to talk a little.

 _Gabriela_ , he types.

_Gabby._

_Gabby! Gabby! Gabby!_

He knows that it won't take long for her to reply to him, since her phone was a part of her body since the day they'd met. Gabriela wasn't exactly what you would call an honor student, which meant that a) she had no boundaries when it came to texting during classes, and b) Harry had to carry her through school sometimes or she wouldn't be graduating anytime soon.

_can't chat now. the teacher's explaining bout dolphins!_

Are you sure you're in the right class?

yeah, H. dolphins!

The true explorers of the american lands! Don't care about them. Need to talk.

you broke the soda machine again?

If 'soda machine' is a metaphor for 'my relationship with Rupert', then yes. Hurry up.

now that's crap. coming.

The boy gets distracted by pulling the loose threads of his black jeans while Gabby doesn't come walking down the hall with a spring in her step, his best friend's usual way of moving. He's breathing heavily, as if he had just run a marathon in his navy blue sweater that covered all of his tats but the small arrow on the inner side of his left hand's back, pointing down so it meant peace, and the stick 'n poke drawings on his right fingers. His mouth was still curved down in dismay, which was atypical. Harry was a crier, but never the kind who sat on a public hallway looking miserable. Even though he never felt embraced by school's environment, he wasn't the kind to walk around stoop-shouldered and stuff like that. The boy was, most of the time, pretty chill and even so cheerful, and to see him like that would reduce Gabby's heart to pieces, for sure.

He could already envision Rupert walking around the school holding hands with Nico, the exotic exchange student/fresh meat/owner of the most beautiful blue eyes that Nuthatches had ever seen (according to the Most Beautiful Eyes ranking hung on the girl's restroom wall, which Harry knew about because of Gabby, who thought it was super cool that he got tenth place).

Harry should've known better that it wouldn't take ages for his boyfriend to break up with him. Actually, considering Rupert's priorities in life, it was surprising that they dated for so long. The boy always needed more of a trophy-boyfriend than an actual one and was always trying to fix Harry to make him look cooler. Perhaps he should be grateful for that, because beanies and plaid shirts were acquired taste, but sometimes he wondered if it was actually worth it dealing with so many complaints. Rupert always had something to say about the way Harry dressed – which, to be fair, was never _that bad_ –, whom he joined to group works or sat with at lunch and an endless list of other apparent mistakes.

Well, Nico was the perfect trade-off, then, so cool with his pretty eyes and the Italian citizenship. If Rupert didn't mind dating a guy who barely spoke English, mistook waffles for pancakes and came from a place that took you ages just to be pronounced – Colletta di Castelbianco – _fine._

Gabby quickly crosses the lawn field between the Humanities and Math & Science buildings, feeling the sun on her skin. Harry was a downcast character in the middle of a colorful hall decorated with big bird mobiles hanging from the ceiling, a reminder that the Interstate Soccer Tournament was just around the corner, which Harry always found quite funny. Because, really, having a hopping bird as the mascot did not make the school look any more _respectable_. Little birds were not aggressive nor proficient competitors. Maybe a big eagle, but not a nuthatch.

Whatever. Maybe that was a part of the alternative school management that orchestrated it there, after all.

He doesn't notice Gabby coming closer, too hung up on ripping the sewing of his jeans. She strokes his soft wavy hair, which makes him look up at her with his sleepy green eyes. The boy shrugs as if he had suddenly given up on life.

"Hi," he smiles with closed lips, squeezing the girl's ankles, his big hand circling it with no difficulty.

"So, what do you wanna do first? Set his locker on fire or fill his shampoo with purple hair dye?" she beams. Gabby's smile was cheeky, kinda boxy.

"I bet he'd love that, the attention seeker," Harry snorts and then pouts.

"Wanna watch the soccer practice?"

"You joking?" the boy squeezes his face as if he had just bite on a lemon. No way that would ever be an option to him.

"To bad-mouth them!" she explains herself, aware that Harry not only hated the soccer team – because, yes, they were pretty despicable –, but also the sport itself. He just holds that grimace on his face. "C'mon! Can't you forget your principles and go speak ill of them just a little?"

"How's that supposed to make me feel better?" he complains.

"They've got nice booties," Gabby shrugs and Harry rolls his eyes despite laughing. The point seems to be good enough, though, as he stands up and starts walking with the girl straight to the back of the bleachers, where the boys cannot see or upset Harry.

He bends down, grabbing the soda cans and Doritos bags thrown on the ground. A colorful trashcan was placed in the corner for ages, but people still seemed to forget that it even existed. Gabby snorts at Harry, rolling her eyes at the image of her best friend trying to fix other people's mess, as usual.

She covers one hand with her sweater sleeve, necessary for the always-chilly April, and swipes off the cigarette butts thrown over the old desk that students used for sitting, leaning back on her elbows while watching the ten kids running after a ball on the field, while one stood all silly-faced in front of the goal posts. Harry joins her soon after, giving in to the beautiful scene happening before his eyes.

Those boys sure were pretty when they were not talking.

Besides Chad and the three other guys who came at Harry earlier, all of them had beautiful but regular bodies. No huge muscles or too much height, which was more of Harry and Gabby's taste (not that noticing it was relevant, since they would never interact friendly).

Gabby presses her long lashes together. She always tried to address Harry's problems gently and, at the moment, she felt like she should give him some space. Rupert was the first proper relationship Harry had ever had, and even if the infatuation between the two of them was a decreasing function, that still must be hard. The great thing about dating, in general, is not only how it feels, but also the convenience it brings, and, well, most people hate stepping out of what once worked well straight to the unknown – ridiculous, sure, but legit. You spend most part of your life _not_ dating anyone and it only takes falling in love once to use up your abilities to do that just fine.

She assumes he's too sad or disappointed to say anything, but when she looks at the boy he's laughing silently and restrainedly, watching Louis and Caleb get on their feet after a fall, cursing at each other.

"I knew your heart wasn't that good," Gabby mocks and he shrugs. "Can I see your tongue?"

Harry turns his head to Gabby, looking annoyed, but finally puts his pink, thin tongue out of his mouth. The tip of it was strawberry-red. He crosses his arms over his chest soon after that.

"What was that for?" he asks.

"Just making sure you still have one."

Harry grumbles.

Gabby gives him a few more minutes, picking at her cuticles anxiously. She wants to avoid blabbering but, at the same time, she dwells on the fact that he was the one who said he wanted to talk. Maybe he was just waiting for her to bring up the subject. Gabby stares at his profile for a little while, noticing that his jaw line was even more rugged than the usual, because, as he always did when he was stressed, he was gritting his teeth. However, that wasn't the only thing calling her attention. Harry was looking attentively at the pitch, his green irises following someone's movements like he was a hungry lion looking at a baby deer. He doesn't even notice her staring.

"Who are you looking at?" she can't help but ask, squeezing his arm and laughing.

"What?" Harry shakes his head, taking his eyes off the field quickly.

"Who were you looking at?" she repeats it.

"No one. I was just airy."

"Yeah, right," she narrows her dark-blue eyes. "Was it Louis? You haven't spoken since the Thing."

There she came speaking of the Thing.

"Nonsense, love. You know I find him awful."

"Don't look at him then," she insists.

"Goddammit, Gabby... What happened with Rupert was," he lets out suddenly, partly because he wanted Gabby to stop talking about whatever he was looking at, partly because he knew he would have to talk about it sooner or later, "he got tired of me. He likes Nico now."

"Who the fuck is Nico?" Gabriela wrinkles her nose.

"Nico who came from the depths of hell, that one," he answers bitterly.

"Oh, _that_ one... He barely speaks English!" she exclaims, realizing whom Harry was talking about, and jumps off the table, looking at her friend with indignation, as if it was _his_ fault.

"That's what I thought," he shrugs. "Whatever, though. Rupert can hook up with whoever he wants to, things were not working out between us and I don't give a damn."

"If you don't give a damn why were you crying?" she snaps, taking him by surprise.

"Break-ups suck. This whole situation sucks. He sucks. I fucking suck," he takes a deep breath. "I had someone, and even though I knew it wasn't being smooth sailing, I didn't expect him to _dump_ me. I thought we would ignore the fact that we weren't even kissing that often anymore until things got back to...normal. That didn't happen. He left me and replaced me in the blink of an eye."

He bites his lip, which only makes it more red, and swallows hard several times, trying his best not to cry again.

"Don't you think it's better not to have anyone than being with somebody you don't actually care about?" Gabby asks in a low voice.

"I care about him."

"I'd say you did once. In, like, a super distant past."

"We were just different, that's all," Harry looks at her, taking another deep breath. "I still liked him, anyways."

Were. Liked. Did. It sucked how he had to speak of some people in past tense, as if they were ghosts.

"You will find someone who actually deserves you," she says, hugging his shoulders.

"Stop it," he snorts, referring to the pathetic cliché Gabby had just let out.

"I mean that," she rolls her eyes. "You were really different, yes, but in a bad way. Rupert is only suddenly so great because you broke up. If it was just another day you would be fully aware that most of the time you two are going in different directions."

"Except for when it comes to sex and coffee," the boy tries being serious but ends up laughing, his eyelids so close they almost hide his irises. "Can you believe he pointed out I don't remember what's his coffee order? As if I ever knew it in the first place. It's easier to list how many people have died in Game of Thrones."

Gabby laughs. "What will you do about...the whole thing?"

"Accept and move on?" he grimaces, throwing his head back and pulling the air heavily into his lungs. They would have to become lions.

What else could he actually do?

"It's gonna be fine," he says, trying to convince himself. It was the truth, anyway, or at least it would be eventually. Things always end up getting better. " _If_ we go play snooker tonight."


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fun night out turns out to be not-so-fun and Harry ends up calling his ex-boyfriend.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Colleen, Gabby's best friend, says while she stares at Harry's modest bum inside his usual dark jeans. The boy was partially leaning on the table covered in green wool, striking the colorful balls with precision.

He takes a straight stroke and pockets two balls at once, raising his Coke bottle and laughing lazily while he mocks Josh. Next, he takes a sip on the drink, casting his jaw line, and Colleen's stomach lurches in a strange way.

"You have got to be kidding..." the fire-haired girl says it again and opens her mouth wide in complete disbelief.

"I'm serious," Gabby reassures her with an energetic head nod. "He simply kicked Harry."

"That's a sin," Colleen says, feeling personally offended by the fact that someone _simply_ gave up on that boy standing before her. Then, she shrugs. "Well, none of us ever had a good feeling about Rupert."

That was the ugly truth. Rupert was a nice guy, but not nice enough for Harry. Not that the wavy-haired boy should be put on a pedestal or anything like that, but he did deserve someone a little more humble, comprehensive and loving, whom he could feel at least a little empathy for. Colleen – and all the rest of Harry's friends – found his boyfriend fun, full of mean jokes that most human beings love, but not boyfriend material.

Great company, regular friend, terrible boyfriend: that summed him up.

"Yeah, well," Gabby snorts, slapping the air in front of her. "You know Rupert's type. I think his hopes that Harry would become _someone_ , in his own perspective, ended up fading away."

"Harry doesn't...?" she leaves the question hanging, already knowing what the answer was.

"No, Harry's not the type who cooks this fulminant, ephemeral and fly-by-night star called School Popularity in his pockets."

"Okay, E. E. Cummings. And Rupert is," the redhead says quickly, batting her long lashes several times. "They've got nothing in common, Harry is broken-hearted and nothing's going to stop me from taking a little advantage from the situation. End of story, bye-bye," she finishes and hurries up, standing behind Harry until he bumps into her petit body.

He turns around, giggling when his eyes finally meet her, rather shrunken and sheepish behind the boy 30 centimeters taller than her. It's almost possible to _feel_ Gabby rolling her eyes at that scene back in the saloon's corner, but Colleen doesn't stop herself even for a second. Maybe after she gets one of Harry's warm hugs she goes away and gets herself a beer, maybe not.

 _Come on, Gabby, you're not the only one who has the right to be slowly dying from loneliness_ , Colleen thinks intensely, hoping that psychic thing is finally working because, frankly, she did not spend 12 dollars in that Telepathy Secrets book for nothing.

"'M sorry, Cole," Harry says.

By the dizziness she's feeling and the light buzzing in her ears, she can tell she's getting drunk or, as Gabby liked to say, _making peace with life_ , which justifies a lot of things, like her inability to stop staring at those rosy thin lips.

"Didn't see you there."

"It's all right. I'm only gonna let you get away with this one because you're kicking the boys' ass," she says loudly. They howl some complaints in response. The girl takes a look at the small blackboard hung on one of the wood walls. So far, it looked like that:

HARRY 3 X 1 JOSH

HARRY 2 X 0 JULIAN

HARRY 2 X 2 BEAR

"That's because Axel's not here. Nobody can beat him on snooker, not even Harry," Josh says in a complaint tone, annoyed by his ridiculous inability to put balls into holes. Apparently, holes weren't being his strong suit lately, since he hadn't had sex in two goddamn months.

"If Harry frenched him a little bit I bet he'd win as many matches as he wanted to," Bear says, opening one of his usual crocked smiles, sat on a sofa around the billiard table completely chilled out. His beard was marking his face and, when he spoke, Colleen looked at him, while he looked at her ass – which, by the way, was still pretty nice.

Maybe it was better that way, looking at her tight jeans in that exact area than at her face, since her big almond eyes seemed to cast a spell on him from minute to minute. He missed his _thing_ with Colleen more than he would like to admit, but being without her was a reasonable price to pay, since every time they were together Bear fell back in love with Gabby. Speaking of which, they had become friends by the typical girls' way: bad-mouthing someone.

That someone in particular was, of course, Bear.

It was a big surprise for the thin-bearded boy to get to Amsterdam Billiards, in an apparently ordinary Friday night, and see Colleen getting along with everyone, arm-in-arm with Gabby, laughing as if she'd known _his_ friends for ages. At that time, nearly two months had passed since he and Gabriela had broken up, and not even a week since he and Colleen had been through the same, and he couldn't imagine how that was even possible.

Wasn't it like a girls code to keep an intense yet silent rivalry between exes and current girlfriends? Especially when the current girlfriend in question had been found so quickly. It scared him to see them getting along rather than hating each other.

"Hi, Bear," Gabby said, smiling victoriously. "You look a little dizzy."

"We've met on Facebook, if you're wondering. There was this paper on your desk..." Colleen was reticent, "full of GABBYs and little hearts. I went to get my infos straight in the source."

Just like that, they became best friends.

However, it wasn't like he was hurt or whatever. Bear's head worked in an enviable speed, and as quick as he started thinking of the girls, he stopped doing that, focusing, then, on the bitter taste of his Heineken.

"Why do you love talking about that so much?" Harry rolls his eyes. It was funny that they kept mentioning Axel every two seconds when he wasn't around, but didn't have the guts to tease him about Harry face to face, since the boy still thought his _fatal attraction_ for Harry, as Bear liked to say, went unnoticed even with his anything-but-subtle flirting.

"I'm more concerned about finishing this match than discussing Harry's love life," Bear's little brother announces, even more irritated than before, while he stares at the disposition of the snooker balls with furrowed brows.

That simple combination of words makes Harry's stomach twitch in an uncomfortable way, up roaring about the unnecessary mention of his currently crappy love life. It wasn't really easy to stop caring about someone so soon, and it seemed like that state would just... last forever; like it wouldn't really be a state, but an everlasting condition.

Believe it or not, Harry also didn't want to discuss that subject. Unlike Rupert, his fresh break-up extinguished in him any interest he could possibly have on people. He was there to hang out with his friends and try taking his mind off the past few hours. He did not want to talk about Axel, Rupert, or even admire the beautiful but irrelevant guys at the bar.

"Let me get this straight for you, Josh: you're losing," Bear laughs and Gabby comes closer to them just to roll her eyes at him.

"He just needs a little luck!" she exclaims, standing on Josh's side and hugging his shoulders.

Ever since she'd broken up with Bear, she grabbed each and every chance to counter strike him, even though she didn't know exactly why. Maybe she wanted to show that their disconnection was so huge they didn't even thought the same way anymore, but truth be told, Bear was very often right. His thoughts, unlike Gabby's, weren't fogged by this cloud of kindness and care. It is a lot easier to be honest when you are not trying to be kind.

"Chill," Harry chuckles and wets his lips with his tongue. "It's your turn, man."

"Your leopard-printed shirt is blinding me," Josh murmurs, giving a cold look at the fabric and then at Harry, who just laughs and nods skeptically. The long-haired boy really was a bag of thunders, morning boners and slices of bread falling with the buttered side facing down, but his friends adored him. Otherwise, they would've kicked his grumpy ass away ages ago.

Josh takes a good minute scrubbing chalk on the tip of his stick, and the small white particles stick to his black beanie. There were smiling faces printed on it – _oh,_ the irony. Harry kills time watching Gabby. She had cat-y eyes marked by eyeliner and a tattoo covering one of her bony arms. Her hair was blonde and wavy, and the grey baggy Bugs Bunny shirt overlapped the coral jeans skirt. Looking at that girl without knowing her was, most likely, assuming she was all rebel and tough, when in reality she wasn't like that at all. Gabby was adorable and dreamy, a girl who stood up for Summer Finn even though she didn't agree with her choices.

Harry suspected that, if she had a chance, she would drop her life in New York and go live in a small town, because maybe her Noah Calhoun was around there. Harry kept saying that living in New York she had more chances to find a _Ryan Gosling_ , which was tremendously more interesting, but it wasn't like she would listen.

Gabriela really was something else, and even though Harry liked being good, being around her made him want to be better, because it was almost unfair to be close to someone so nice and be a douche or something like that, like eating saucy ribs in a brand new shirt or giving away something you got as a gift. These are things you simply shouldn't do, and how could Harry be impatient or mean around someone who adopted a dog and then another, just so Frodo wouldn't feel lonely? That already ran out of money for subway tickets countless times for tipping the sidewalk musicians? But, on the other hand, liked to speak ill of her Biology classmates, the soccer team and the Government, besides slightly mistreating Bear? She was sweet, but not perfect.

"Stop staring at me like a crazy person," she looks at Harry from the other side of the table, hiding her face behind her hair, as if the best friend couldn't tell her cheeks were blushing.

The noise of Josh pocketing a ball takes Harry out of his abstractedness, and he turns around to face the miracle of the night and almost applauds his friend, who is now smiling, looking proud of himself. Regardless of that, Harry wins the game, changing the number next to his name on the blackboard and sticking his tongue out at Josh when the boy pretends he will punch Harry right between the ribs, where Harry's large butterfly tattoo was placed. Julian holds Josh's hands behind his back as if the situation was genuine, trying not to choke on his own laughter.

"Let me kill this bug! It looks more like a moth!" Josh growls, pretending to struggle in between Julian's arms, and the only thing that tells that he's having fun are the small folds under his brown eyes. Harry covers his abdomen with his hands as if he was carrying a baby.

"Cocaine is turning him into such a violent person!" Julian cries in a dramatic mellow tone, and God knows that is a joke. Heavy drugs were not their thing. Bear smoked cigarettes and weed, and so did Axel. Zach used to smoke every day, but then he went to live in Amsterdam for six months and got sick of the whole thing, saying that there he had more access to his supposed forbidden paradise than to Jolly Ranchers.

Harry had tried it once and, besides coughing like a tuberculous, he kept listening to this steady hum, almost like his head had turned into a beehive, and his muscles were so relaxed they began to weigh, making it seem like the boy was immersed in a mud pool. He asked Bear if that was the usual sensation, to which he replied it pretty much was, and that made Harry ask himself why the hell people smoked that thing. _Or ate it._

"Well, me and my moth are taking off to eat fries," Harry says, stepping forward and kissing Colleen's and then his other friends' heads, that complain about Harry be leaving so early.

"Want me to go with you?" Gabby asks and Harry freezes, trying to look relaxed. He started feeling exhausted all of sudden, but he knew that if he let that show the girl would want to join him no matter what, so he tried to look okay.

To go around showing a broken heart was almost as graceless as wearing flip-flops to your rich uncle's dinner.

"No, it's all right," he half smiles. "I won't take long anyways. Do you have a ride home?"

"I can take her," Bear says.

"Don't be ridiculous," she rolls her eyes.

"Take a chill pill, princess," the boy says. "I'm just offering you a ride."

"Whatever," she raises one hand with eyes closed, which is quite funny. "All right, then. Have fun," she waves and he walks away.

Throughout the entire small walk that it takes to go from the tables area to his Mercedes G Wagon, black from the caps to the windows, Harry only has eyes for his huge Cookie Monster keychain. He does not notice the bartender or the blonde girl sitting on a stall by herself checking him out, head to toe, even as joyless as he looked. They probably can't even imagine that there must be at least ten years of difference between their ages, and that, if Harry was drinking, it would only be thanks to his fake ID. He is soon inside his car, turning up the music so he can't hear his thoughts.

The Weeknd starts snoring at full volume, which couldn't be worse, because it puts him in the mood to fuck. He still doesn't understand how he can be so horny all the time, but that probably happened to every person his age.

At least he hoped so.

 _God, he didn't even have someone to have sex with._ He missed someone that never really made a difference.

⊹⊹⊹

Harry's black watch beeps shortly after another full hour: 1AM. He has a sufficiently large box of French fries and another one of onion rings sitting on his lap as he drives away from Burger King's white windows, with San Francisco coming out of the speakers. _Well, I've been in love with love and the idea of something binding us together_ , a very acceptable and cheerful music unless he paid attention to the lyrics.

There were barely any movement on 8th Avenue and it was cold. He should head home. Instead, he parks at Mobil and fills the tank, looking at the numbers spinning at the gas pump with determination. 5 dollars and then 6, 7, 8, 9, no romance, no romance, no romance.

When he gets back in the vehicle, trying not to sink into the leather seat, he faces his cell seductively sitting on the panel, and it could not draw any more attention even if it was shining in neon lights.

_Don't._

He wants to focus on the greasy food, but it's hard to chew when your mouth is curving down, letting you know you're about to cry, and your throat couldn't be closing more even if you were having an allergic reaction to someone else's bullshit. Or your own. God, ours is the worst bullshit. If he didn't call Rupert to try and fix things, he would start crying like a baby, and you can be sure that wasn't hard for Harry even in the slightest, with all that emotion running high at all times.

 _Maybe he was wrong. I just need to make sure_.

Harry grabs his phone, ignoring how his heart jumps disappointedly when it notices there's no missed calls from Rupert. His number was still saved with little hearts and a crown, which was something Rue did himself, but Harry kept it that way.

The number starts calling and, as despair teaser levels, the sounds were equal to a condom getting lost inside of you, and Harry's guts tie like shoelaces, then Rupert answers the phone, his voice very pasty and very low. If he was drunk, asleep or trying not to wake someone up, his ex-boyfriend would never know.

"Hi," Harry says, his voice deeper and huskier than the usual – more than he wanted it to be, quite frankly. He swallows hard. His mind was already functioning kind of like: _whydididoitwhydididoitwhydididoit?_

"Uh, hi!" Rupert replies, sounding too carefree, almost cheerful if you want to fan the flames. Okay, so maybe that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, maybe he was glad that Harry called, he was just too proud to do that himself. "Did something happen?"

"No! No..." Harry answers quickly, tapping the wheel nervously. He feels a little bit more confident, though. More than he should. Confidence and ex-boyfriends are the perfect combination for putting your foot in your own mouth. "I just miss you."

_There it was._

"Honey, let's not have this conversation again," Rupert says, sounding more like a tired mom trying to be compassionate with her child than like a guy that Harry used to date.

 _Honey_ , and that wasn't that tacky thing that happens between married or super lame couples, but the kind of distant and not intimate at all vocative. Thanks for choosing our establishment, _honey._

Honestly, don't say that shit unless you're Rachel Green or Monica Geller.

"What conversation? I think you mean _monologue_ ," he says acidly.

Rupert inhales loudly, probably already rubbing his fingers on his forehead impatiently at the other end of the phone.

"Listen, you're great and not stupid at all, Harry. So move on."

"Like it was easy," he snorts.

"This wasn't a sudden thing, God, what are you on about? It was a process, Harry, a _process._ We were already done before the end."

"It doesn't matter, Rue, you're being selfish anyways."

That was true, since Rupert had jumped straight to the stage of Finding A New Guy from his stupid 'moving on' thing.

"Aren't you used to that yet?"

"...and heartless."

Chocked voice on one side.

Dead silence on the other.

"I feel like I should hang up now, and I will," Rupert says, sounding quite decided, "and that does not mean that, ohmygod, I have so many things to tell you that I'll end up saying none of them, because that's not how it goes. It's over. I'm not being heartless, I'm fucking setting you free. Got it?"

"Cool," it's the only thing Harry says, because he didn't know what else could possibly come out of his mouth that wouldn't make him sound like an idiot.

"And you know what, Harry?" he goes off, taking Harry by surprise. "I really, really loved you. Tacky but true. It may have been fast and not mean anything anymore but, damn it, I'd believe the end of the rainbow was your bellybutton if you told me so, you friendless son of a bitch." That would sound like an offense if Rupert didn't say things like that all the time. "But you didn't love me, not even for a second. You certainly liked me, but you didn't _love_ me. Did you?"

More silence. Rupert lets out an irritated snort, making the call sizzle for a moment. Harry stares at the blue and red sign at the gas station for a long time, only managing to think how much Rupert was probably hating himself right now for sounding so needy.

"You can't even lie," he laughs coldly. "I don't care. If you loved me or not, it doesn't change shit."

"I..."

"But that's the thing about you, you know?" Rupert cuts him off. "You can't lie, can't be rude to people, and maybe you don't know – I mean, who am I kidding?, of course these news haven't got to Harryland yet –, but half of my girlfriends never spoke to you because they were angry I proved them wrong by dating you. They thought you were straight," he chuckles.

"That doesn't..."

"Shush. You know why they wanted you? Because they see you and Gabby talking in the hallways, and you're always being loving or making that nose-up-my-ass laugh, and you're always laughing too, with your mouth _and_ with your eyes. Those goddamn green eyes, tenth place."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"What do you wanna talk about? Us? I don't wanna talk about us. I feel guilty, Harry, because I simply can't love you anymore, no matter how incredible, golden-hearted, good in bed and incredibly pretty you are. Not even your phenomenal taste for tattoos matter, even though you never cared to explain them to me."

Harry laughs at the other end of the line.

"Yeah, laugh as much as you want to," Rupert ends up giggling too, but then he gets back to being serious. "I am indeed really selfish but, believe me, what I'm doing is kind of... good for both of us. Eventually, it will be. I had a relationship with an amazing guy and I killed it. And now I'm hanging up on him."

Then he does exactly that, hangs up on Harry, cheeky as always, too honest and even a little petulant. All the things Rupert said may have been true and even a bit flattering, but, in the end, he really wouldn't care, wouldn't even mind to stick his tongue into Nico's mouth right before Harry's eyes, because, to him, that was case closed, nothing more to hurt or throb. He had said what he needed to, but, more than that, what he thought Harry needed to hear, and there, in the little things, was Rupert's compassion. Trying to be sensitive was enough charity for a breakup, _c'est fini, et fim, mes anges._

That is the closing of Harry's night, the perfect cue for him to drive to his apartment with his tail between his legs and lay down on his bed staring at the ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars bought at Wal-Mart. In a way, Rupert's words were kind of freeing, even though the hurt was still there. Meek, but there. The great truth is you don't suffer much for the things you've never loved, otherwise you would spend so much of your life in sorrow. Not only the Universe had an effective compensatory mechanism, but the heart, with its seemingly uncontrolled emotions, but in reality very dosed and coherent. Love makes it hurt, addiction makes it burn.

He only jumps on the mattress, without even taking his clothes off, just staying there with eyes wide open, waiting for the echoing sound of the air-conditioner coming from his sister's bedroom to lullaby him to sleep.

 _The world plays music all the time, Wallie Balie, all you've got to do is listen_ , was what the shaman of the stories his mother wrote and illustrated for him and other American children once said.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has a thing for Mexican food. And for Axel.

"I've got the best news for you!" Gabby bumps into Harry in the hallway, even though he was late for spending 15 minutes on Grumpy's line to get his mocha and having trouble finding a parking spot.

"Yes, please?" he says while opening his locker, grabbing the History's book.

"Love your outfit," she says distractedly, ignoring the usual black jeans, but really digging the aquamarine jeans button-up, with the sleeves rolled up his elbows. She had never seen one of those. Plus, he had a head scarf on his hair printed with pastel roses, and she was proud to say she had converted Harry to the constant use of that accessory.

"The news. The classrooms flooded? There are squirrels in the pitch? Obama came to give us a lecture?"

"Actually, yes!" Gabby part opens her lips, as if Harry guesses correctly. "He's coming to talk about his plans of making America a better place by extending vacations to five months."

"Sounds inspiring."

"We're stronger than our short-lived vacations. Now, moving on. Best news of the year."

"The guys from the soccer team are going to be transferred to Alaska? To beat new records playing with a snow ball of the size of their brains, I mean, _really_ small?" he says and starts walking to his History classroom, decorated with two really, really ugly statues from the Art Department, one of Martin Luther King and other of Gandhi. Honestly, the students should've known better it's not okay to put activists in tie-dye shirts (in fact, tie-dye shirts simply weren't okay on anyone). And that birds didn't have such apparent genitals, so this was a detail that could be spared.

You know what else birds didn't have? Eyebrows.

"At least they'd be winning at something," Gabby says, "but it's not that. The Student Committee finally got Mr. Pullman to bring Nachos Day back, claiming guacamole is healthy."

"You're kidding!" Harry exclaims excitedly, his eyes twinkling like stars. "I love guacamole."

"I know you do, _mi amigo_ , so this is a big day for you. See you at lunch?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he smirks at Gabby, kissing the top of her head and entering the room. "Morning," he opens a smaller smile to the teacher, who doesn't bother to give the boy a telling off. He was a good student, after all.

Basically, that's how his class follows:

_When France was defeated in the Battle of Sedan, in 1870, losinguacamole to Germany the rich provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, there was an awakeguacamole of a strong nationalist and revanchist spirit that opened the guacapossibility of a new European war._

Even Mrs. Miller face was greenish, but that was probably a consequence of her pregnancy, not Harry's hunger for pasty avocado.

He feels like sharing the news with anybody that hadn't seen the menu's board yet, but, as if it was necessary to look around, he knew there were no one there whom he spoke to, so he texts Axel, trying to convince himself that it wouldn't seem like something it weren't, like: hi, I'm single and texting you randomly, come by my house tonight and we can have sex! Above all, they were friends, and they'd been to Great Burrito dozens of times to share their passion for the green thingy, so, you know. It was reasonable.

 _Guacamolyayyyy_ , he types, and the reply comes in less than five minutes.

_Tomatoes? Pineapples?_

_Avocado and pepper, Ax. It's nachos day at Nutty._

_Oh, the scholar system. It's whateveryouhavetimetoeat day here at college._

_Numbers are already ruling the world and stuff?_ , Harry types, grimacing at the thought of having to bear with Engineering. Oxygen, water, romance, music, sex and Human Sciences, my friends. These were the truly important things in life.

_Not completely. You know how it goes, numbers and words... are still a good match. ;)_

_Whoa there._

_Especially when Words just became single. What happened?_

_Wow, how our friends always make sure bad news spread quickly. Weren't we talking bout food?_

_It was just a friendly question... kind of. You ok?_

_Sure. Going through all stages, living the moment, you know._

Harry fills his lungs with air, sticking out his chest so he doesn't feel that unpleasant heartache. The girl sat next to him, Kristen, gives him a weirded-out look. He looks back at her, a little bit bashful, and smiles. She doesn't smile back.

Because he was handsome _and_ gay; too irrelevant; detestable or simply because she was nasty? He would never know and, also, he didn't care.

_Good, H. What's life without a few breakups?_

_Who knows?_

_I gotta go raise some buildings that are going to make history (yeah, it's just a calculus class that requires my attention). See you soon?_

_Hopefully_ , he replies. Okay, so _maybe_ Harry needed a sex buddy or something, who was he trying to kid? It wasn't like he would hurt Axel's feelings since all he felt for Harry was attraction. No love, no passion, just something smooth that the green-eyed boy could handle easily.

⊹⊹⊹

Unfortunately, Louis and Chad were behind Gabby and Harry in line for lunch, monkeying around like always. There were three girls around them, illustrating the cliché that players hang out with cheerleaders. The fact that they were flirting with them is a particular yet very funny joke to Harry but, as he was already used to, he lets the situation fall between the cracks.

"Gabrieeeela," Chad meows behind them. "Won't you really talk to me? Our story comes down to that little argument in French class?" he teases, making his friends laugh.

Harry rolls his eyes and exchanges a glance with Gabby.

"The thing is," he gets back to what he was saying to his best friend, trying to turn deaf ears to the jabber directed to Gabby behind them, "it is a really crappy album, and anyone who...--"

"If I wear girl stuff on my head like your friend, will you pay attention to me? _Ayons le sexe!_ " Chad starts talking louder, getting on her nerves.

Gabby went off the deep end very easily. She tried to be patient with people she liked but, since the only thing she felt for Chad was scorn, she loses her temper and turns around to face him, trying to control herself so she wouldn't stick his face up a nachos plate.

"This is how things are going to work, Chad: you're going to respect me, 'cause I'm not one of your friends who are cool with being called to have sex even in English," she says and the girls grunt and swear in response, certainly because when the shoe fits, you wear it. Gabby just ignores them. "You don't know what respect is, I know, but look it up on the dictionary later. Now grab your lunch, I think it's better for you to occupy your mouth chewing on something than talking, _if_ you're not the kind of person who does both at the same time, right? Ass."

Louis lets out a howl, laughing wildly. "Ouch, dude. I'd hide under a table after that."

Then he quickly reaches out to the last plate of nachos before Harry can even get his hands near them, distracted the way he was. Gabby squeals, offended, but Louis just shrugs. "Be faster next time," he says to Harry and leaves the queue, going away and sitting with his little den of idiots.

"Son of a..." Harry says, gaping at Louis and his bad manners still hanging in the air. Gabby was at a loss of words. "Alright, whatever. Let's eat out, somewhere nachos aren't crap."

The boy leaves the queue having a tantrum, but he gets back right after.

"Rose, I didn't really mean your nachos are crap!" he says, pleading, to the plump woman with bright blue eyes behind the cafeteria counter, who smiles at him. "I just wanted to say something dramatic. Your nachos are great. I'm glad they're back."

"Gay," Chad rolls his eyes, hugging the girls' shoulders with both arms.

"Straight," Harry replies, as if he was explaining something to a child. "Yes, Chad, I'm gay and you're straight. The sky is blue. Water is wet."

"I said gay? I meant faggot, even though it's all the same thing."

"Oh, shut your mouth, Chad," Rose scolds him. "And I know that, Harry. Go get your nachos."

The boy nods, letting the supposed offense go. It was odd that Chad really thought he could make Harry feel bad by calling him gay. He was proud to identify as gay because it said a lot about him – that little tag, detached from people's perception of it, wasn't heavy at all. The only thing he didn't like was to be summarized to that – no one is their sexual orientation.

What a nice world it would be if people cared about what really matters and knew how to be kinder, that including not cutting in line and getting someone else's freaking nachos.

Fortunately, any student there, not only the seniors, could leave the school for lunch. The teenagers were not obligated to accept the school's environmentalist current that preached the reduction of meat consume. Many people there did not care about Mr. Pullman's speech that stated eating meat is what leads someone to kill and sell a living being that much probably wanted to live.

Harry became a vegetarian after a few weeks in Nuthatches. The school philosophy got to him. He wasn't a cow, a chicken, a pig or a fish, so he couldn't know how they felt being alive. Tyler the Creator said that maybe the veal on your plate had hobbies and things to do, but, then, _bang bang_ , veal, you dead. That made sense.

Nuthatches was highly ruled with great influence of Waldorf Method of Teaching, and most families did not trust in it. That's why the school was so small. It took a long time for Adrian to agree to enrolling Harry and Charlotte there, but Isabella was just the kind of mother who could not be any happier with the human and creative progress her children had made since then.

"Wanna drive?" Harry asks rhetorically, throwing the keychain to Gabby and heading to the passengers door.

The first thing she does is taking one of Harry's random CDs from the glove compartment. The boy had tons of them, since he loved making mixes. _Slow Dancing in a Burning Room_ is the first song to play, all slow and torturous, but very beautiful, what makes it impossible for Harry to skip it to _Advert._

The girl strokes the wheel happily and even a bit affectionately, grinning. She loved her best friend's car almost as much as she loved his self, and they always had a great time listening to music and driving in the fast lane. She hoped they could go on a road trip someday. Maybe they could head to Napa Valley and Harry would get wine wasted and babble until they got to Los Angeles. The world was so big and she knew so little of it.

That didn't upset her, though. The girl knew, subconsciously, that youth can be fun no matter who or where you are, you just have to give it a chance. To be young was to be on the spring of everything, within the eye of the storm. To be young was receiving the quest of keeping your own secret safe forever. _Maybe_ you think you'll watch your kid get home drunk, someday, and share some stories with them, but you most likely won't. You'll keep your mouth shut, maybe help what came out of you (whether you are male or female) to find their way to bed and think "well, I sort of miss that".

Because, yes, that's the time of anyone's life. It should be. Youth roars like nothing else. Doesn't matter if, as an adult, you're mature enough to reach the Nirvana, youth's glimmers will always be the most precious things to keep, like tiny glowing particles hidden inside, where no one can see them, secretly waiting for a chance to come out again. Make sure you live in a way worth looking back at.

That would always be the big deal: the world's different for those who haven't gotten off the rollercoaster yet. It smells different, has different colors, and people present themselves as gods or monsters waiting for your embrace. They can be liars or people who tell you a truth that you don't care about. They can be everything you ever hoped to find and still slip through your fingers. They can make you feel stubborn and boring and still manage to stay in your life forever. People come in such different shapes... The tomorrow's different as well, as full of doubt as your own self, such a maze... such a trap... most probably saving something that will slowly try to kill you. And you'll almost give in... but then you'll drink a pint of beer or ride around town, you'll eat some of your favorite food, kiss someone, find out that you're not that much of a shitty poet or that your favorite character won't die, you'll make a new friend, find an old edition of Spider-Man forgotten in a dusty bookshelf of a shop, receive the news that your favorite band's coming to town, discover a new position to sleep (or have sex), notice that something in your body changed for the better, be lucky enough to be driven by a nice bus driver, find a random YouTube video that will refresh some of your old lame perceptions of life... _something._ You can think a little. What would save you from tomorrow?

"What happened last night?" Harry asks all of sudden, consternating Gabby. There were many Mexican restaurants in SoHo, including some near Nutty, but the boy knew her friend would most likely drive to Central Park and convince him to eat Taco Bell's takeaway nachos under some tree.

"What do you mean?" she plays dumb.

"Did Bear give you a ride or not?"

"He did!" the girl shouts, her voice so off-pitch it makes Harry laugh. _Oh, no._ "Dammit, I really need to practice this acting cool thing."

"Please, don't tell me you guys kissed," he looks at Gabby in an almost sentencing way.

"No, we didn't kiss!" she cries out, laying her head on the wheel while the light's red. She feels stupid and, at the same time, intoxicated by Bear, mainly because she should've predicted that feeling would come again, but she didn't and look where it left her. She always thought she could resist to him: that was Gabby's problem. "Is it bad that I want to hit him with a bat?"

"Oh, not at all!" he slaps the air, his irony so consistent it was almost like a third person in the car.

"We talked. I mean, he said a few things, those Nick O'Leary-ish things he always says to me," she shakes her head on the double, as if she could kick those kinds of thoughts out of her head manually.

Harry does nothing but eagle eye her, his green irises becoming the perfect inquisitive tool. _Are you serious?_ is what they say, for they have had that conversation so many times it was almost comical to see Gabby one step away from getting tangled up with that whole thing again. Come on, it was Bear they were talking about, and even though Harry liked his friend, he wouldn't say he was trustworthy when it came to women, even if the woman in question was Gabby and, someday, he had truly felt something for her.

"I'll give you a box of homemade pretzels and a fluffy hamster if you _bear up_ this one."

"Gosh, that was terrible," she giggles.

"Come on, Gabby."

Gabby gives him a puppy look. She wished she could promise something like that.

"What can I say? I'm seventeen, I deserve some heart breaks."

" _No!_ " he shrieks, slapping the panel, which makes Gabriela laugh. "Dumbledore, it happened! They stole Gabby! We gotta go!"

"Dumbledore?" the blondie can't stop laughing, almost hitting the taxi in front of her.

"Eyes on the road, you idiot!" Harry makes this weird voice that makes it hard to pay attention to the road. "I trust Dumbledore, Gabby. He might be shady, but I'd turn him into an icon for the LGBT+ community if I could. He smaaart," he adds, making a ridiculous peace sign with his fingers, eyes closed.

"You've got some serious brain damages," she's still laughing. "Dumbledore's gay? Where did you take that from?"

"J.K. Rowling said that, but you can infer the whole thing from the way he walks. And the shining vests? Come on..."

"Stereotypes."

"Stereotyped facts, love."

"Well, damn it then, I had the biggest crush on him!" she jokes.

"'M sorry to hear that, but don't try to change the subject, Gabriela. In the garden of life, you've just been lowered to worker ant."

"Are you high?"

"On disbelief! Bear? _Again?_ "

"I just don't know what to do when it comes to him!" she pouts, turning into 116th Street straight to Taco Bell.

 _I knew it_ , Harry thinks.

"What are you having?" Gabby asks, knowing she can't run away from that subject for long, but maybe Taco Bell gives her a few extra minutes. "Nachos, still?"

"Nah," he says, reading the drive-thru's menu. "I want chips and guacamole and one Chalupa Supreme, no meat."

"God, you're gonna leave Central Park pregnant."

She repeats Harry's order to the girl in a black uniform, adding to it her usual Loaded Potato Griller without bacon and two black cherry Mountain Dews – their favorite. Harry hardly thought there was a better tasting fruit in the entire world, whether it was in soft drinks or not.

He kept thinking of cherries until his cup was in his hands. And Gabby kept thinking of Bear and how the possibility of being with him went against all her principles.

⊹⊹⊹

"I really can't walk right now," Harry's voice was muffled and he was leaning against a tree trunk with his hands on his belly. His eyes were closed – even looking around was exhausting.

"I told you so," Gabby says.

"If I got in the lake right now I would sink like a stone."

"Harry, you can't sleep. You know that, right? We only have 20 more minutes."

"20 minutes is all I need," he replies and snuggles further to the tree.

Gabby chuckles lowly, barely believing what she sees. How could someone be okay with lying on the grass full of bugs? She lets him do it, though, and kills time watching people walking their dogs, some wearing leashes, some not. She would love it if her dogs were well behaved enough to walk around without being held by her, but she'd never been really good on training them to do so. The girl had heard that it was a women's thing: spoil their pets too much was involuntary. There were other people walking, alone or holding hands with someone else – which specifically hurts her. Others take quick smartphone photos of the buildings that worked like a background to the innumerous Central Park trees.

The wind blows merciless and she feels her nose getting cold and pinches the tip of it. There was an old woman crossing the grass while eating an apple, her husband right behind her. Gabby smiles to herself. Love really was a cute thing.

That was pure peace, she thinks. Being with Harry completely asleep without that little wrinkle between his eyebrows that had followed him the entire day and, before that, hearing him talk about the food, Char, Bear, Axel and their plans for college, no mentions of Rupert. If her inside was not so messy, being there would be even better. _Thank you, Louis, for being a dick. I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for that._

As Walt Whitman said, peace is always beautiful.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's a beautiful day, now watch some bastard fuck it up."

The lightness of the day hits Harry unexpectedly, in the middle of any other action. He had just walked the entire hallway C in hopes the line to the only water drinker that actually let out some cold liquid wasn't huge, which didn't happen. His expectations were crushed: there were 10 people ahead of him.

He folds his arms across his chest and waits. Then, out of the blue, a question comes to his mind, as fast and unpredicted as the meteor to the dinosaurs – Harry hoped that a radioactive version of the animals still existed in another planet or something, because, obviously, God's creation couldn't sum up to the Earth, given the fact that its main residents should be a beta version of something good in Divine's Planning Book. The official version certainly wouldn't fuck everything up like humans do. He asked himself: _am I okay?_

It could sound very simple, but it was different to get out of bed without an urge to cry, take a nice shower and have a nice breakfast, and even listen to music on the way to school drumming on the steering wheel, and be fully aware of the fact of _being okay._ Harry was perfectly okay, no pain, nothing burningly skinning over inside of him – which was kind of lame to say, but still the way it always happened. Realizing that made the feeling be multiplied by two.

It was simply relieving to be able to think: _hey, check this out, I'm okay, somehow I managed to get rid of that little dragonfly circling inside me, trying to disturb, and maybe now things really work out._

It's as good as opening the kitchen cabinet and seeing that your mom finally bought three boxes of Cap'n Crunch and now your dreams about diving into a pool of milk and cereal will cease. As good as finding money on the street – not for the money itself, because, most of the time, it was nothing but pennies, but because lost money's almost like a lost treasure in a city of many. As good as getting a compliment from a stranger, or a special offer at your favorite restaurant, long hugs and comfortable silences. So good that it made Harry want to smile, which he does, even though he faces down.

⊹⊹⊹

The entire class was giving Mr. Fleming a petrified look. It was the first time in years everybody was quiet at the same time. There were always millions of talks happening while the petit and flamboyant teacher tried to explain topics, because no one ever took Life Orientation classes seriously, since it was an academic version of anti-AIDS campaigns speeches. A few years ago, when Harry didn't even studied at Nuthatches yet, the class was called Sexual Education, but the principals decided to change the name to avoid the constant jokes coming from students (as if it could be effective). Particularly, Harry thought it should be called We Will Teach You How To Put a Condom In This Dick of Yours But Do Not Expect Anything Other Than That. Because, of fucking course, they had no idea how to approach real sexual education.

The sole purpose of the class was to label teenagers as careless horny donnuts and display pictures of genital warts. There was also the routine of watching the teacher putting condoms on dildos. It was fun to watch him comparing human and animal sexual behavior, though. Someone should tell Mr. Fleming two giraffes climbing each other's body was _nothing_ like humans doing it. 

The third period of Wednesdays was especially embarrassing for Harry, since he was known as " _the only_ gay person of Life Orientation's B class", and Louis Tomlinson (even unaccompanied of his s _ass_ y friends) always joked when Mr. Fleming put penises and vaginas made of plastic together: _hey, teacher, this is so discriminative! Where are the plastic assholes so Harry can learn properly?_ (Because, of course, sex ed. for gay people is such a joke! Ha!). Then he laughed at his own joke along with the rest of the class, but Harry suspected that making fun of him was only a way to take their minds off their own discomfort.

Either way, the student's role had always been to sit their asses on the chair and listen to Mr. Fleming rambling about maturity and the responsibilities that come with it, never practice anything, absolutely never practice, until he decided the class should do a project. _We need some dynamic, don't you think?_ , he'd said, and no, no one thought _dynamic_ was a particularly good idea, unless by that he meant he'd find willingly models, 12 girls for the boys and 8 boys for the girls and Harry. They'd have to meet, have sex and then write a single page paper about how cool it was to bang someone who had an angel face. However, that wasn't anything like what Mr. Fleming had come up with.

Maybe the girls should put, next to the eyes ranking, a Biggest Smiles one, and Mr. Fleming would be the first name, permanent and untouchable, because the way he curled his lips when announcing his plans for the class was certainly worthy of recognition. He literally almost smiled from ear to ear. He wanted the students to be parents for a month. The teacher spent the entire year saying how to avoid parenthood before being old enough and then he turns the table and suggests a final project in which the class would have to take care of a betta fish and make it live for at least one month (which, according to him, was "easy as pie", since betta fishes are supposed to live from 2 to 5 years – the real elephant in the room was: if it lived 'til the end of school year, who would be responsible for it, the father, the mother or Mr. Fleming?)

It didn't end there. Besides taking care of the fish, the doubles – whom he insisted on calling _couples_ – would have to write a supporting work about the parenting experience and meet with another couple who had been though the same.

Where _were_ they, on _Sixteen and Pregnant?_

The only one who decides to speak up against that is Iggy Simpson, a preppy blonde that convinced herself she was born in the hood or something, as if her caps conferred her any kinship with Tupac or whatever. She even had this fake intonation going on.

"Yo, Mr. Flahming, I had sex with a fish? You tell me, did I? No, then I ain't gonna take care of a baby fish, you hear me?"

The man simply faces her and lets out a long disapproving sigh, about to roll his eyes but stopping himself in time.

"I want a raw assignment, the thing as it is! I am hoping that the trial's not so pleasant, loves, because you have to keep in mind that children and adolescence do not match!" he goes ahead and claps quickly, completely excited. "Oh, come on, Patton, don't pull this stomachache face. It shall be fun!"

He doesn't forget to mention that the project will take place of the final test, since they were all becoming adults and, best case scenario, would be in college soon and, well, adults have to get their hands dirty from time to time – like, they do grocery shop, clean the house, handle tough situations maturely and stuff like that. Or at least they pretend to do so.

"Come on, come on, partner up!" he says and hides his face in the Great Gatsby.

 _Oh, wonderful._ Asking such thing to Harry was the same as removing his grenade's pin. There wasn't anything he hated more about school than having to do group work. Maybe he could do his with Patton, since she did not have any friends either – and, for the record, she _always_ looked the way Mr. Fleming pointed out. He takes a deep breath once or twice and is almost going after her when Louis pulls him by the arm. Everything was sort of happening in slow-motion, that type of situation where everybody's so rushed and speaking so loudly that the brain has a processing error, and he can't react when the tattooed arm grabs his and he loses the chance to pair with the blonde girl. Mia Patton ends up sitting with Matthew Griffin when she looks around and everybody has already sort of arranged themselves together.

 _Sort of._ The scene looks like a zoo opening all its doors at the same time, with students trotting on the chairs, boys trying to pair with the three only girls left, given the fact that the rest of them chose to stay with their girlfriends and be lesbian couples rather than getting together with that bunch of humanoids.

Harry staggers at Louis when his ability to react to something finally reaches him back and starts yelling he want to change partners – but nobody listens to him, because everybody else is also screaming all sorts of things while Mr. Fleming watches the class with his chin on his hands and a serene expression on his face, like a father contemplating his child peeing in the potty for the first time. The blue-eyed boy, for whom he nurtured a mutual lack of patience, tries to shut the boy up by putting his small hand over Harry's mouth.

Upon that, the teacher stands up, all smiles, and keeps clapping until everybody is properly sat with their _partners,_ which is so, so comic. There are four perfectly amicable lesbian couples, with the girls smiling to each other; three not so happy straight couples, who just stare at Mr. Fleming as if they were mentally coming up with a plan to make him get an infectious disease that would last for about two months (something that wouldn't kill him, though, 'cause he was a nice guy at the end of the day); and five gay couples completely heated, with a tension wall between them. Speaking of which, two of them were formed by _partners_ who kept punching each other's arms in an attempt to attest, very poorly, their manliness.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Harry murmurs bitterly to Louis, his teeth clenched and eyebrows furrowed, when Mr. Fleming starts, once again, explaining how the project would work.

"Writing down our names," he says as if it were obvious, widening his eyes to Harry for a brief moment and then passing the list to someone else.

"I'm not referring to that," he rolls his eyes. The boy was unfamiliar with being that angry. "I don't wanna do this thing with you. You had no right to...--"

"Okay, Styles," Louis cuts him off and closes his blue eyes briefly, looking pretty angry as well. "It's a _stupid_ thing. You're the only good student here and I really need to be approved."

"You have to be very dumb if you need me to be approved in Sex Ed.," the green-eyed boy says, having a hard time and feeling this weird will to punch the soccer player's face.

"Just so you know, the name's Life Orientation. And, yeah, whatever. I'm doing bad in almost everything, can't take the risk."

"It's not my problem," he grumbles, sliding his butt forward on the chair, almost lying down on it. Louis reluctantly glances at him, rolling his eyes very quickly and making a disapproval noise with his tongue, as if Harry's attitude was completely incoherent and he should gladly take the partner he was given – or maybe imposed was a better choice of words.

"Anyways. When Mrs. Rowe gives us the Biology assignment, I will be perfectly content to do it with you. The woman loves you."

"Can't believe you just said that," Harry says with contempt, taking a deep breath and waiting for a dose of patience to hit him right in the middle of his goddamn face.

"Yeah I did and, either way, it's the truth," Louis shrugs. "She always compliments you."

"I'm not talking about that, man," the boy snorts. "I'm talking about the fact that you spent the whole year being a pain in the ass to me and now you pick me as your pair. This is ridiculous."

"Whatever," Louis says and sits straight, looking at the teacher and pretending he's listening to what the man is saying.

The following weeks would be hell to Harry. Despite barely standing to take three classes a week with Louis and other boys from the team, despite don't even liking to come across them in the hallways, what was completely reasonable, he receives the glorious gift of having to take care of a freaking fish with that... _person._

You know what?, he would do it all by himself. Look after the thingy and go for a Central Park walk with an eighteen-year-old mother had been was abandoned by her boyfriend. Then he would write this huge paper about being lovelorn and how everybody should have safe sex, dick wrapped in a condom design by NASA or something. He only needed to add Louis' name on it to spare himself of unpleasant days.

The Universe had such a dark sense of humor.

⊹⊹⊹

Harry was in some kind of PMS circle – and worst part was that he too seemed to be riding that hormonal rollercoaster. He, his sister Charlotte – a junior at Nuthatches – and Gabby were in the car, going to the movies. The music was so loud he would have to scream even if he didn't want to, but the thing was he felt like yelling. 'S good for the soul.

"How could he? I mean, after _everything_ he's done, after the _Thing_ , the _bullying_ , being a prick and simply existing in the same universe as me, I just...I don't...How could he?"

"Let's use mom's vegetable knife in his stomach. It's a brand new one," Charlotte says while braiding her blue hair.

"I need a permanent solution, Char," Harry says as if her suggestion was to be taken seriously.

"What's more permanent than death?" Gabby says from the backseat and the girls burst into laughter.

"The _guilt_ of removing a guy like Louis from the planet. A jerk, yeah, but so, so hot," she can't stop herself.

"Shut up," the boy rolls his eyes. "He's not even _that_ hot."

The girls keep quiet, but he sees them looking at each other through the rearview mirror, completely disagreeing with Harry but not wanting to say it out loud. Well, Harry really couldn't find him pretty like other people did. His personality didn't allow it to happen. But then again, Louis probably wasn't mean to the girls whom he tried to fuck as he was to Harry.

"I don't know what to do," Harry says, filling his chest with air dispiritedly and then letting it all out through his mouth.

"Doesn't he deserve a second chance?" Char asks.

Harry tried doing that with people, but with Louis it was different. Giving him a second chance, even in something silly like a school assignment, would make him face a series of dilemmas that were supposed to be dead and buried. He couldn't do this to himself, wasn't fair.

If Louis needed good grades, he'd better try to recover lost ground on his own. Harry didn't have to carry him on his back and, if Tomlinson didn't agree with that, well, why should Harry care?

"No, he _doesn't_ deserve a second chance, Char, have you lost your mind?" Gabby almost jumps on the backseat. "Adolf Hitler deserves a second chance, Louis Tomlinson doesn't."

" _My dear_ , Adolf Hitler killed millions of people, so you might want to reconsider that," Charlotte says in a reflexive tone and half-closes her eyes. "Oh, my God, the stuff I have to hear."

"You know what I meant. Hitler was a big douche. He wouldn't deserve a second chance, but neither would Louis."

"God, I'm so pissed," Harry complains and leans his head on the wheel after parking the car. He found a spot in 14th Street, which meant they would have to walk to Sunshine Cinema. "I need to have sex."

He says it because it's obvious. Stressed people need to have sex, that's not a secret. Char and Gabby's eyes nearly scream AXEL but their mouths don't say a word. The girls give him that "you know what you have to do" look.

" _Okay_ , I'll text him," Harry says, stopping himself from grinning by puckering his lips.

The girls smile widely. Charlotte's eyes, especially when she smiled, looked exactly like Harry's: bright and sleepy.

"That takes a huge weight off my chest," Gabby says, putting one arm inside Harry's and pressing their bodies together.

"Why?"

"Because all I want is for you to gift your bum to someone who actually deserves the thing," she says that because Axel is exactly what Gabby wanted for herself: handsome, stylish, already in college, gentle, funny and smart. And just because she wanted someone like that, what she got was Bear: handsome, stylish, still deciding what he wanted to do with his life, outspoken (it was so rude, sometimes), with a questionable sense of humor and, well, ok, smart. That's how life worked for her. _Make a list of 20 things you look for in a potential boyfriend and then pick three 'cause that's all you're getting, sister._

Maybe that was good, though. Maybe life would surprise her in such a crazy way that he would look back and realize she never really knew what she wanted.

"I won't _gift my bum_ to anyone and you know it, you classy nugget."

"I know," she laughs. "Was just trying to speculate. It's still a 'no', then?"

"I really don't want to have a conversation about my ass, if you don't mind," the boy turns his head to her and smiles awkwardly.

"Okay, all right."

"Are you really relieved for him? Because I feel the same," Harry's sister says.

"Okay, girls, thanks very much for that but it's enough. Group hug to close the case?"

The girls get closer and take their time with the hug thing that is, at the same time, quite weird, because they're in the middle of the street, and comforting, because, well, it's a hug and it's warm – and in April that was completely welcome.

The comedy about a broke gangster not only takes Harry off all the stress, but off that world, transporting him to another one. That is what art does to you, whether it is movies, books, music, paintings, photographs or whatever you consider art to be. They take you off one atmosphere and leave you at another, sucking you from time and space and giving you a reality that's only yours – because art courts each person in a different way. Only this brief trip, we can't deny, makes it up for half the bad things that happen every day. The world's full of dust, but it's also full of art. You get dirty and then clean yourself up in another universe.

All you got to do is reach out and let it touch you.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis calls Harry.

Laughable, not to say tragic.

It was so comic how life had a lot to do with luck – or the lack of it – and little random events that ended up adding up perfectly. A week before having an unpleasant surprise after coming into Biology class, in the first week of May, Harry had gotten sick – a new virus, when would they stop appearing? –, reason why he skipped the class in which the teacher gave the assignment that would complement their tests' results.

Harry wasn't there to _try_ finding a pair, so Louis had nothing to stop him from pissing off the wavy-haired boy a little bit more, putting them together to study molecules or whatever. He was also not there to protest against it and, when he got into the classroom with his health perfect and his mind sane, all of that went down the drain as Louis called him to start planning what they would do, since everybody else was ahead of the boys.

Harry got so mad he felt like crying. The blue-eyed boy's actions didn't seem to be an academic matter, but an attempt to bug Harry. That was their last but one month of school, and maybe Louis was finally realizing his chances of feeling superior to someone were slipping through his fingers. Maybe he wanted to see Harry on the edge, which seemed to be a way of fun for him, Chad, Quentin and the rest of the team. It wasn't pleasant and it definitely wasn't _acceptable._ The boy feels like a complete idiot asking for permission to leave the class and running to the bathroom with tearing eyes.

"What's going on?" Louis Tomlinson's voice, always more high-pitched than Harry's, reaches the younger boy's ears before his image reaches his eyes. Trying to hide his crying is pointless. With tears rolling down his cheeks or not, Louis would still find him pathetic.

The green-eyed boy just shrugs, knowing that the inked and slightly thin figure before him wasn't genuinely interested. No matter what Harry said, Louis only cared about himself – whether it was about his grades or his particular and vile way to have a good time.

"Come on, Styles, I'm not in the mood for this," he says harshly. "What's going on? Will you keep weeping like a little kid or tell me what the deal is so we can go back to class?"

"What's going on with me is none of your business," Harry mimics Louis' tone, which sounds so, so strange to him. "If you're not happy with your pair, then, well, that's your problem. I wasn't the one to choose doing anything with you."

"Is that what this is about?" Louis rolls his eyes, pressing his lips together in a way that makes his cheekbones outstand even more. "All this drama, _again,_ just because of a stupid school thing?"

"It's more than a stupid school thing. You can't force me into something I didnt ask for. I prefer to do my assignment by myself."

Louis presses his fingers against his temples and inhales deeply. Up next, he starts walking in circles around the tiny bathroom, as if he was about to make an important decision, like Willy Wonka having second thoughts about turning Violet blue forever. God. Louis was such an idiot.

"Listen, man, I'm raising my white flag, okay? At least in L.O. and Biology. I really need your help."

Harry laughs under his breath.

" _What?!_ What does 'at least in L.O. and Biology' mean? That, outside them, you're going to keep giving me a hard time along with your oh-so-manly bro pals? You must be out of your mind. Your notion of respect doesn't exist at all."

"Can you say that again?" he folds his arms on his chest, smiling with the corner of his mouth. "Oh-so-manly bro pals?"

Harry rolls his eyes impatiently. "Sod off."

"Oh-so-manly bro pals," Louis says to himself. "Something that has to be added to the Dictionary as soon as possible."

"Definition being _yo, dude, what did you have for lunch today? 'Cause I ate pussy ha-ha-ha! My dick's so huge._ "

"Yes, that's exactly how me and my oh-so-manly bro pals talk."

"Just say 'we'. You're one of them," Harry puffs. "Just leave, please? I'll be back in class soon. Don't wanna miss the chance to talk to Mrs. Rowe about working alone."

"Harry, come on now. All I do is joke a little, for fuck's sake, it's not like I go around beating you and stealing your lunch money. Can we move on, now?"

"By lunch you don't mean nachos, right? Because those you steal, since your rudeness apparently made you forget the concept behind a queue."

"Cut it out, Harry. Makes it easier for both of us."

" _You_ cut it out – this thing of talking to me. I suggest you go joke with your friends, people who can stand you. Why don't you do that? I'm not one of those people and, honestly, I'll never be."

"God, the drama. It's fine if you don't wanna be my friend," Louis rolls his eyes once again and rests his hands on his hips. "Never asked you to be in the first place. I just want you to cope with me on those goddamn assignments."

Harry gets up, ferociously staring at Louis. He was one step away from feeling repulsion and that made him feel dirty inside. He was used to eating crow, getting angry and even arguing with his sister every once in a while, but he never felt such disdain for someone. It was one thing to see him like that along with his friends, but being alone with Louis and realizing that was just who he was made Harry dislike him so, so much.

"Fuck you," he says even though his voice shakes.

Louis last sees Harry through the mirror – the wavy-haired boy getting back to crying and licking his rosy lips while rushing out of the bathroom.

God, why did he cry so much?

⊹⊹⊹

"Harry, won't you come down and have dinner?" Isabella asks. She always looked young, even when worrying.

"What?" he asks even though he heard what his mom said. His voice was muffled by the the mattress, since he was lying on his stomach with his face pressed against the bed. He only had his jeans on and it was cold. Turning off the air-conditioner felt like too much, though.

"Dinner's ready."

"Oh, okay," he sounds exactly like someone who's feeling like shit. "Do you need me to set the table?"

"No, baby, your sister already did that. I just want to know if you're coming downstairs to eat," Harry can't see it, but the woman has the eyebrows furrowed in preoccupation. Since he got home from school, Harry had barely said a work. He'd been lying on the bed the entire afternoon and, now, it was already night falling.

"I'll be there in a second," he lies.

"Harry," it's now Charlotte's turn to call his name. She pokes his back until he turns his face to her. "Your phone was downstairs. I answered it for you."

"Who is this?" he asks, still sounding bored.

"I don't know," Charlotte says genuinely. "It's a boy. Or a girl with kind of a rough voice, I don't know for sure."

Harry already knew who it was. He grabs the phone and ends the call, making Charlotte stare at him as if he was the strangest thing in the world. If his appetite was at 0 a few minutes ago, now it was at -30, so the boy asks the family to leave his room with a wave, trying not to be rude, but being.

"Sorry. Bad day," he murmurs before Bella shuts the door.

Louis calls again and Harry picks up, barely thinking of what he's doing. His fingers just leisurely slide on the phone screen, an illustration of the complete lack of will to speak with anybody at the moment, especially Tomlinson.

"What do you want?" Harry says and Louis asks himself if he's been chasing rabbits or what, because he sounds completely exhausted.

"Erm, hi," the blue-eyed boy is completely uncomfortable, not to say nervous, at the other end of the line. He can't stop rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans. Even _he_ couldn't believe he had the nerve to ask Harry for anything. "Are you at a funeral? I like the soundtrack," he tries breaking the ice with a stupid joke once he hears _So High_ by Ghost Loft in the background. As soon as he mentions it, though, Harry turns the music off.

"What do you want?" he repeats the question. "How did you get my number?"

"Well, your number's still the same...I didn't...I mean, _you_ didn't...--"

"Never mind. What's up, man, what do you want?"

The longest silence follows and then Louis clears his throat.

"Did I tell you my ass is on the line in every class?" he says. He didn't want to but, if he wanted help, he would have to expose his situation. There was no other way for Harry to know about it if Louis didn't tell, unless the green-eyed boy was some type of nosy hacker that liked looking for other people's grades just for the thrill of it.

Silence.

"The thing is...You...Like, I mean, I know you're asking yourself why I'm doing this to you, I know how it works... how's that saying? A tree falls the way it leans."

"Yeah, so what?"

"I'm getting what I gave and all that shit, but can't you make an exception to the rule?"

"I can but I won't. I really don't care about your grades. You're a self-digger."

"I'm not...For real, Harry, don't take me wrong. I just really need this."

"Let me teach you something: don't ask for anything from whom you've fucked ov...--"

"That sounded really double-barreled," he says and Harry snorts. "Sometimes the act itself is a favor. Like, help a guy out? Fuck buddies and stuff?"

"What are you even talking about..."

"I don't know either."

"The answer's no. I don't want to sound like a child, but ask your friends."

"My friends don't take Biology or Life Orientation with me."

"Please, accept my sympathies."

"I know I...Harry, I...It's a delicate situation, all right? The guys don't even worry about college, but I do. Psychology in Columbia, that can't be easy, can it? The odds are, like, 6% or something? They think they're getting a sports scholarship but I'm trying to be a little more realistic, since I'm not even _that_ good, I mean...--" he rambles.

"You know you're good," Harry cuts him off, sounding bored. He was just stating a fact, not complimenting him. "Or, like, better than the other ones on the team."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean good _enough._ My mother... I can't even imagine how angry she'd be if I didn't go to college this year. You remember her, right? You've met a few times back when you were my Math tutor."

"Yeah," Harry avoids the subject immediately. He didn't like to remember that. He perfectly remembered what Louis' mom was like: rude, superficial, a complete bitch – an, in a way, the perfect mother for the current version of Louis Tomlinson.

"I've survived eighteen years; please don't get me killed now."

"All you can do is hope there's a divine contract that prevents arrogant bullies to wander in the limbo, Louis. And, please, don't ever call me again."

The boy is still sprawled out on the mattress when he ends the call, just in time to cut off a long "please" Louis was saying. It would be extremely ridiculous if Harry gave in to this pseudosentimentalist bullshit that was being thrown at him. Even though Louis showed some niceness for the first time in years, Harry wouldn't buy it. It was simply too convenient that he chose to "redeem" with Harry right when he needed a favor. Not that he apologized or anything relevant, but the fact he called Harry and talked about his despair regarding college was _something._ One doesn't go around telling their problems to random people, do they?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's fortune cookie tells him something he can't ignore.

**The meal that ends up changing everything:**

The problem was Harry believed in signs, especially when the sign in question appeared under odd circumstances.

It was Humanity Day at Nuthatches High School, a mild Thursday and also antepenult Exceptional Day that Harry and all other seniors (well, at least most of them) would experience. On those days, the regular school agenda was suspended and all classes got together to do things with some meaning behind them.

The year started with the Welcoming Day, in which the people that already went to that school should make the new students feel, well, welcome. That was one of the dates that ended up being completely corrupted by the teenage ego, and the day ended up being kind of like: friends rejoining with friends and catching up about summer and newbies forming an embarrassed crowd that was just waiting for the end of that. In May there was Humanity Day (in which every student should contribute to repair the school in some way: fixing broken chairs, replanting trees, cleaning the gymnasium, filling the Gym class balls and stuff) and the Fund Raising Day (they usually washed cars and sold organic food – because, yes, some people took Agronomy classes). The last one was in June and it was called the Appreciation Day – in this one you were supposed to make your colleagues feel special and, even though the date seemed more like an off season Valentine's Day (or, for most single people, the day of _Shit, I'm sure I'm gonna die alone!_ ), the school magically turned peaceful. There wasn't any real display of affection between people who hated each other the entire year, but at least there wasn't any bullying or gossip either – which made Harry _float_ through the hallways with harps playing in the background and everything.

Then they had the Interstate Soccer Tournament. This one wasn't an Exceptional Day but had the power to change the school's atmosphere just as much. Every student was already on vacations – or two weeks away from summer school – and completely aware and excited for the upcoming trip. They usually needed six excursion buses, which made the fact that most students supported the team even more obvious.

Point is the school's agenda was suspended and that meant Char and Harry would only have to be there at 2PM, which gave them time enough to have lunch wherever they wanted to. The boy is standing in front of his small wardrobe in his boxers when Charlotte rushes into his room, urgent like she only got when there were bugs flying under her roof.

"I'm really craving some Chi food," she says, and that's the completely unlikely fact, since Char avoided Chinese food as much as she could.

"Aren't you mistaking China for Japan again?" Harry gives her a questioning look and starts to move his hangers away from each other in search for his baggy black shirt – the one with long sleeves and collar buttons. He gets in his jeans shorts ending just above his knees that he planned on wearing. It was warm outside and he'd be cleaning a bunch of things so it was better not to wear pants or else he would end the day like a little sweat pool.

" _No._ "

"Okay. And you're also not pregnant, right?" he asks distractedly while opening his head scarfs drawer. "Which one?"

"The Duck Donald one," the lilac-haired girl answers without a second thought. That one was, by far, her favorite. "And, _no,_ 'course not, Harry!"

"Great, Charlie! Proud of you. Can we leave in ten?"

"Yeah, I'm almost ready, just gotta finish my make-up. I bought this new Maybelline that makes your lashes be sup...--"

"Ten minutes!" he shouts over Charlotte's voice. "And I have no idea what a Maybelline is."

"It's a make-up brand. Great choice if you still don't know what to get me for Christmas," she turns around and leaves the room, heading to her own. She hears Harry asking her to look up online for some Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood, their usual way of deciding where to eat.

"Which one did you pick?" he enters the turquoise-blue bedroom a few minutes later with the hair properly done – which always takes him the longest. Char had only been blessed with one window, but her decoration was far better than Harry's.

"China Village. Google Maps says it only takes five minutes by car."

"Let me see," he says and pulls the white MacBook to himself, searching for the same thing Charlotte had less than five minutes ago. _What for._ "Check this one out. The website looks so cool. We've got to eat there."

"Because of the website?" she squeaks.

" _No-o,_ " the boy hums. "Because the name is pretty sick, too."

That's why they end up inside the car heading to Buddakan. The path by feet would take around 30 minutes and Char was sedentariness in person. Harry wasn't much better either. His frequency at the gym was once a week, if so. 30 minutes was too much effort for them. Plus, they would have to drive to school anyway, and going back home only to pick up the car would be kind of stupid.

They lived in West 40th Street, near both Bryant Park and Mid-Manhattan Library, which couldn't be any better. Harry was far gladder about that than Charlotte, since she preferred to read in her bedroom. The public library was magnificent to him, the closest to a Hogwarts' room he'd even been in. Sometimes he couldn't even focus on the book and just kept staring at the roof painted like the sky, completely fascinated by it.

Harry didn't really have any problems with Chinese food, but it wasn't exactly included on his eating habits. The place they eat in is so pretty that Harry can't help it but say that it looks like he and Char are on a date – if dates at one in the afternoon were a thing.

"Speaking of which... I sort of have to tell you something."

"Open you heart and pour it on my ears," he says unmindfully, more caught up in turning his head like a cat and watching the whole orange-ish decoration of the place.

She stares at him for about two minutes. "My God, you're so weird... Anyways, I... have... a boyfriend?"

"What?" the boy chokes on his on saliva, widening his eyes so much that, if he was a cartoon, they would be jumping out of its orbits.

The waiter comes to the table a couple of minutes after, and all Harry can babble is "my little sister's dating, man, that's not _right,_ that's not how Earth's meant to spin", so Char orders for both of them. He keeps the Charlotte-just-put-my-world-upside-down look the entire lunch, which she thinks is quite funny. To say he was overreacting would be an understatement. She doesn't say anything though, just lets him _live the moment._

"Does that mean you won't be a virgin anymore like, soon?" he whispers to her, mortified. The thought only leaves his head when he opens his fortune cookie and finds a white slippery paper inside it that reads: _say yes._

Say yes to dessert is what he wishes it had popped up into his mind, but Louis is the first thing he thinks of. That was a freaking sign and Harry never, _ever_ ignored signs.

Driving to school, he can only imagine how guilty he'd feel if Louis didn't get into any college, after all, a share of that would be on him. Even if Louis was a total bitch, life wasn't all about trying to be good to others no matter what? Just because he was an evil raging wet Gremlin Harry would act the same? That wouldn't be his usual way to go and, as much as his benevolence wanted to slip through his fingers, it couldn't.

He'd say yes. _For old times' sake,_ Harry kept playing on his mind so he didn't end up hating himself... too much.

As Gabby had already acknowledged, there Harry was, cleaning other people's mess.

He would never be able to stop doing that.

⊹⊹⊹

 _is the tree thing good for you?_ , Gabby texts Harry, interrupting his little trip around school. It was either walking or texting, he couldn't do both without bumping into everything on his way.

_No land today, can't get dirty. I'm meeting Holland after school._

k dude. didn't you use to do that on saturdays?

She got a new job, Thursdays off.

fair enough. I got a new MASA student.

Tell me in a bit?

She stops replying, probably walking around school and trying to find something her and her best friend could do together.

Holland was this girl Harry had met through a volunteering program that encouraged young people to get together with someone who was in need of some nice time, and Holls definitely was one of those people. Nothing had ever ran smoothly or joyfully in her life, but it was too soon for her to lose hope. She was still alive, at the end of the day.

Initially, Harry thought of volunteering for MASA, since he had already tutored someone – more specifically Louis Tomlinson – and knew enough to try teaching someone. The thing was Gabby kind of made him look for something different, alleging 1) she was getting too dependent on his drives and 2) Harry already studied too much and she feared his brain would have a breakdown. He never told her friend that, in reality, he and Holland studied together some times.

The nice thing about their volunteering program was he and Holland could do anything they felt like doing. Bowling, ice-creaming, walking, studying, shopping – whatever their mood ring said, they could go with it. Unless the mood ring was like: _uh, buying a mansion and giving a party for three hundred koalas sounds like a good call for today._ Besides that and some other extravagant, illegal, impossible or highly dangerous options, Harry and Holland could do anything.

"Oh, there you are!" he says in a more friendly tone than planned, so he has to clear his throat, getting back to the grave one. "I've been looking for you."

"Holy shit, Styles!" Louis says with one of the hands over his chest. "You scared me, you little fuck," he blinks slowly and takes a deep breath, trying to slow down his heartbeats.

"First of all: that's not the way to treat someone who's about to give you good news, even if only for you," he grimaces woefully and goes on. "Second of all, couldn't you be easier to find? What the hell are you doing at the bikes parking lot?"

"Having a smoke, can't you see?" Louis raises his cigarette to the height of the deliberately messy brown hair, as if the smell and the smoke around him were not self-explanatory.

"Let's say I have tunnel vision when it comes to seeing things I despise."

"That's not true," Louis looks at him out of the corner of his eye, bringing the smoke to his mouth again and taking a deep drag. His jawline gets even sharper when he does so, not that it even matters.

"How would you know?" Harry crosses his arms over his chest for a moment, blowing the smoky air in front of him. Being unpleasant wasn't enough for Louis, of course he had to be a smoker and make walking away and give up on helping him even easier for Harry.

"Well, you're seeing me just fine, aren't you? Aren't I top item on Things Harry Despises' list?"

"You're not that important. Homophobes are my top one, and then comes you."

"Mm."

"Ah, never mind, I forgot you're one!" Harry grins sarcastically.

"And here we have Harry and his little uncalled for comments," Louis rolls his eyes and throws his cigarette on the ground, smashing it with his foot. "What do you want?"

"Well, I came here to tell you I'll help ya," he cannot look at the older boy in the eye, so he starts picking at his cuticles as if they were any important.

"Really?" Louis shouts, and his voice is as happy as it will ever get as long as Harry is around, the green-eyed boy thinks.

"Yes. On my terms."

"And what are your terms? If it has anything to do with sexual fantasies, my name's not Anastasia Steele."

"I'd rather have sex with a slug, but thanks."

"What a beautiful couple."

"As I was saying," Harry inhales harshly. "You won't smoke around me, you won't curse, be rude to people, _throw trash on the ground,_ " he points to the stepped cigarette, "and you'll stop bugging me at school, 'cause I'm not one of your friends."

"Okay, Captain! Anything else?"

" _Yo-ho, Sebastian,_ " he says, raising an eyebrow.

"Stop," Louis replies between his teeth, looking away. Harry smiles.

"Right. There's one more thing: we won't be friends. Therefore, I don't want you to call me or anything like it, all right? That will be all. And if you could wear a paper bag over your head, it would make things a whole lot of easier, because I can't stand looking at you."

"Is that so?" Louis smirks, leaning on a wall. "Someone here is very hostile today, don't you think?"

"Who, you? Nah, you're always like that."

"Of course. And sorry about the cigarette, didn't know you work for Greenpeace," Louis says and picks up the smoke off the ground, throwing it out in a trashcan that was literally three steps away from him. _Was that so hard to do that in the first place?_ He then starts walking away from Harry because he had stuff to do, like pretending he is helping to clean the gymnasium.

"I'm serious, we won't be friends," the green-eyed boy murmurs when Louis's already far, but he hears it anyway.

"Never said I wanted that!" he yells in response, waving his hand with the back turned to Harry. "Keep mentioning it and it'll be hard to believe you, dude!"

 _Thank you, Harry,_ is what he forgot to say.

Gabby arranged for them to work in the kitchen, and all that Harry has to do is putting cupcake dough into paper cups and hope they bake in time for the afternoon snack. The cookers weren't there, since the great purpose of the day was getting the student's hands dirty. Most of the time, he and the girl just make a mess, throwing flour on each other and eating the apples from the storeroom, which annoys the other people around.

He only has time to eat two before his phone beeps with a text from Holland saying that she was about to leave the house, which makes Harry take off the kitchen apron he was wearing and kiss Gabby's forehead in a rush when leaving her with some friends, to whom he waves shyly, in hallway F.

The boy practically runs to his car, because Holland really got mad when he was late. He still had not thought of what they would do today, so maybe they'd have to go to American Museum of Natural History again – last time they didn't got to see half of the exhibition rooms.

It was really beautiful and, from his point of view, interesting. Holland never complained of anything they did. Harry took her off reality so intensely that he suspected that even if they were to sit on a bench for hours and talk about lame stuff, it would already be good enough. He calls the girl while driving, knowing that it was illegal and also an emergency. He's ready for his usual argument with Holland as soon as he hears her lazy "hello".

"Hey, Holls," he says, turning the music down. "I'm heading off to the Queens. Can you give me half an hour?"

"Harry, I've told you I can take the subway! Someone will jab the tires of this expensive Mercedes of yours someday."

_Here we go again._

"Holls, c'mon. It will be a second," he turns to FDR Drive. "Okay?"

"Look, if something happens..." she leaves it hanging. He knows she is already losing her temper.

"All right, Holls. I'll talk to you later?"

"Just honk," she says. It was impossible to stay mad at Harry.

"Rrrright. Bye!"

Harry loved to drive, really. He liked New York, the countless buildings, the infinity of people walking on the streets, all the life happening in a loop. Driving was his only way to see such thing happening all at once. Driving was when he could catch a glimpse of other people's lives; couples holding hands on the street, mothers with their daughters, daughters with their colorful balloons, tourists and the many Carrie Bradshaws spread across New York. Best part was he could do it with his own soundtrack.

Holland really thought she was a bother to Harry, not only because he always picked her up at her house, but because, after that, he had to take her to _places_ and make conversation, but the reality was far from close to that. Harry had a few good reasons to do what he was doing for quite some time now, and none of them had anything to do with the fact he would have to fill bits of his college application with humanist dos. The boy was in this for putting himself on other people's shoes. If he were someone less favored or more wretched, he would love having someone he could talk to; a kind person who picked him up at this place, since the subway could be a drag every now and then. He was in this because, sometimes, he needed to run away from his own life and there was no better way to do so than trying to take care of someone else's troubles – as long as he was welcome to do it. He was in this because he felt like an important part of this puzzle that every human being on Earth forms, and he would have to earn a good spot on the board and not simply try to push himself onto it. He was in this because he didn't know how to care less and because he wanted the world to be a better place, and a little impact is always better than no impact at all.

Holland didn't bother him. Holland made him be someone better, happier.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Axel go to a concert and kiss.

Harry's parents were away for the entire weekend being the true fans of romantic getaways and family visiting they were. Obviously, the first thing Charlotte mentions is bringing her boyfriend over to hang out, which totally means they are going to have sex, because she never made a point of hanging out with him at the apartment when Isabella and Adrian were there.

Thing was Harry was still around and 0% percent keen of the idea of his little sister losing her virginity so soon – even though he had lost his at the same age as her, 16, and she most likely wasn't even a virgin anymore.

"You're being childish," she taps one foot on the floor and Harry looks at her disapprovingly.

"I don't trust Justins."

"Based on what?"

"Justin Bieber."

"Don't be ridiculous!" she kicks. "Please, Harry, _please!_ You know I would do the same for you."

"Christ, all right. I'll leave if you let me read _Love is a Dog from Hell_ first."

"Mom bought it for me! She bought you _Black Spring._ "

"Why do I care, Charlotte?" he snorts, not knowing if he was getting irritated for the book itself or for her going to bed with some boy he hadn't even been introduced to yet. "You're taking ages to read yours."

"Okay then," Charlotte rolls her eyes. "I'll let you borrow it if you don't highlight anything."

"It's a poetry book. Of course I'll highlight things."

They stare at each other with arms folded on their chests.

"Not giving up this one, are you?"

"Nope."

"It's on my top shelf," she says and walks to the kitchen. "Be quick."

"Nice," he grins, rushing up the stairs. "Thanks, you moody alien!"

"It's all right, you smelly bug," she yells back. "And keep in mind I'll be miles away when you bring Axel over."

Sure. As if he intended to fuck Axel under his own roof.

"Listen, can I at least shower first?" he asks and Char says she will wait but, when he gets out of the shower, his sister is already locked in her bedroom. Maybe Justin's teen bike had rockets attached to it, because Harry had never seen someone get to anybody's house so fast. He rolls his eyes to the possibility of his sister being taking her clothes off by now, but there's nothing he can do about that.

He gets in black jeans, grabs a jacket and walks to Central Park, where he spends the rest of the afternoon with Colleen and Gabby. They lay down on this big elephant towel, Harry on his stomach.

"Do you guys wanna play softball?" Colleen asks with her hand resting on her forehead, projecting a shadow over her brown eyes.

"You're kidding, right?" Gabby passes the offer immediately.

"Too lazy," Harry says, absently minded sliding his fingers through his phone screen.

"Bitches."

"Let's play another game," the boy says and pauses for a moment, chewing on his gum the only way he knew how to do it: with his lips part open. "I text Axel and you help me reply to him in a way that will guarantee me the best fuck..."

"Of your life?" the redhead asks.

"Of the month. I'm saving the best fuck ever to my soulmate."

"And who would that be?"

"If he knew, he wouldn't be texting Axel," Gabby laughs and her friends laugh along.

Her blue eyes looked gorgeous on the sun.

"I'm in," she gives him a sneaky look. "I love taking care of my friend's sexual lives. Do you want me to suggest you a costume?"

"No, thanks," he laughs.

"I think no, _please_ suits the situation better," Gabby says.

"I'd go for some type of sexy rabbit. Big puffy years and a bow on your head, pink tale hanging off your ass," she raises her arms to the sky.

Harry bursts into laughter, holding his own face. "Wouldn't be the first time," he shrugs.

"I know," Colleen winks.

"What, you told her, didn't you?" Harry turns to Gabby.

"I did _not!_ " she hangs her mouth open. "How do you even know about that, witch?"

"Rupert told me," Colleen says. "He was about to show me a picture as well, but I thought agreeing to it would classify 'crossing the line'."

Harry stays quiet for a long, long time.

"You're mad?" the girl asks softly.

"Yeah, but not at you," he squeezes his eyes. "I wonder how many people in this city have seen a picture of me dressed as a naughty rabbit by now."

"What a dumbass Rupert is," Gabby rolls her eyes. "If you don't know keeping your privacy is a crucial part of intimacy, doll, then you deserve none of it."

"Yeah, let it be. I still have his iCloud password; I'll delete it when I get home," he smiles and Colleen takes her time looking at it. "So, let's text him or not?"

"I vote for 'hi, cutie'".

"Ew!" Harry screeches in response, outraged by Gabby's choice of words.

"I vote for _Gorilla_ 's lyrics. Give me the phone," she takes it without waiting for permission and, even though he wants to get it back, he's too lazy to do much more than raising an arm.

Colleen types _give it to me, baby, give it to me, motherfuckerrrr_ but of course she doesn't plan on sending the text, until Gabby tries to take the phone off Colleen's hands and accidentally presses the green button.

Harry lets out the loudest curse Central Park has ever heard.

He is sure it resonated through the entire city.

In fact, penguins in Antarctica had just learnt a new word.

"I hate you so much!" he yells, slapping one of her thighs playfully. It comes out stronger than he planned. "Oh, God, I'm really sorry!" he adds but can't stop laughing.

Gabby's thighs were so skinny that what really hurt was his hand.

_I'm sorry but... what?_

"Shit," Harry says between giggles, pointing to the phone screen displaying a brand new text from Axel.

"Playing hard to get, okay, I can deal with that!" Colleen says and keeps the phone in her hands. The boy looks at her pleadingly.

"Please, don't say anything silly again."

"Technically, I just typed it. Gabby is the one who said it. But chill, I'm just gonna flirt a little. Can I do that?"

"Please, do it for me!" Gabby says and Harry laughs even harder.

"Can I call him 'man'? Colleen asks, clearly having fun.

"Yeah," he shrugs.

_Never mind, man. I'm just listening to this song and it kinda reminds me of ya._

Yeah, I've already heard that song. You and me, baby, making love like gorillas? For real though?

Seems like this is a part of the lyrics, yes.

None of them three can stop chuckling. They can only imagine Axel holding his phone and furrowing his eyebrows as much as one can, trying to finish some Calculus exercise but failing miserably.

_Hey, I'm in the middle of this really fucking hard calc exercise. I don't really have the brains to decode your confusing signs right now, even though I'm really trying to._

**Bingo.**

"This is so funny. Why is it so funny?" Gabby asks, looking flustered red.

"This is too mean!" Harry says in spite of laughing so hard his stomach hurts. "He's there thinking that's me. You two are evil."

"One, this was your idea. Two, you're laughing as if there were ants crawling up your ass, Harry, so shush," Colleen rolls her eyes.

"Maybe there are," he says and this could, indeed, be true.

_There aren't any confusing signs. What are you doing tonight?_

"As if _I_ was planning on doing anything," Harry raises his eyebrows to the text Colleen had just sent.

"Oh but you are," Gabby says distractedly, running her hand on the grass. "That junior kid's band's going to play at Le Poisson Rouge. I think your sister is coming as well."

"The _entire_ school is coming, you mean," he complains. "But me."

Harry had no plans of spending his Saturday night with his body smashed between his schoolmates', simply because the situation between him and any of them were already uncomfortable enough without this little addition. Even though the juniors played well – which was why their little rare shows always became news among Nuthatches students – it wasn't worth it.

"Well, you're the only one who can stop me from...--" Gabby was about to finish the sentence with a loud _hooking up with Bear,_ completely forgetting Colleen was right there.

She shuts her mouth abruptly, causing Harry and Colleen to look at her weirdly, waiting for her to get finished. It never happens. She waves quickly, letting it go.

"I told Caspar, Josh and Bear you'd be there."

" _Rupert_ is going to be there," Harry cries.

"So is Caspar, your best friend? Do you remember him?"

"We can see each other at home."

"Come on now, Harry. You haven't hung out in, like, four months."

Cas was Harry's best friend. They'd met each other when they were little, in Seattle, and have been inseparable since then – well, not physically. The blond had been traveling so much in the past two years that it was hard to say they've seen each other more than six times. They still kept in touch, though, through countless video calls.

"But Rue's gonna be there! With Nico!"

"You don't know that," Colleen steps in. "Besides, you can invite Axel and rub in _Rue's_ face that you've moved on just like he did."

"Oh sure, let's all get in I'm Fourteen Again ship. Best ship."

"Don't test me, dude. We all know you can't use the word 'best' followed by 'ship' and not be referring to Lilypad and Marshmallow," Gabby says.

"They're the _bestest,_ you're right."

"Hermione and Rony, loves," Colleen says. "So, can I invite Ax?"

"Hermione and Rony," Harry snorts. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. And, yeah, sure. Invite him."

⊹⊹⊹

Everything is already sweaty bodies, low lights and rock and roll when Harry enters Le Poisson's small space by himself. The Fishtail Gang – the younger guys' band – only played covers, despite everyone claiming they'd probably make great music of their own if they tried. They were playing a speeded-up version of _Dropping Out of School_ and the crowd was a mass of drunken jumping teenagers, which is tough to take in when you're sober. Upon that, Harry goes get himself a beer before even starting looking for his friends.

He tries to find a gap around the bar counter – the only area that seemed to be beyond the air conditioner's reach – while getting bumped into to the point he's feeling heated enough to open three of his buttons. When he finally makes it to the redhead bartender, he asks for two budweisers just in case. He thanks her with a nod head while she pushes the bottles into his hand and smiles. The glasses make a click sound against the rings Harry always had on.

When he is finished with the beers, he tries to convince himself it's already time to get in the huge bathroom line, but it's all excuses. The boy was just nervous. It was the first time he was going to look at Axel knowing that something would happen between them, since there were no more inhibitions or boyfriends blocking their way. Harry _did_ send those messages earlier, for all that counts.

Even though the palm of his hands were sweaty and slippery and his stomach was jumping in a completely undesirable way, he looks confident and calm when he finally finds his friends in one of the lounge corners. Okay, he was nervous, but that did not take his mind off of what he wanted and, all of a sudden, he feels like this guy who can perfectly ogle Axel while kissing his friends' cheeks – first Colleen, then Bear, Josh and Gabby. He steps closer to Axel and, on the inside, it feels like he's going to throw up but, on the outside, a flirty smile plays on his lips, only going away when they finally meet Axel's beard. A kiss on the cheek like any other.

Except longer.

"Where's Cas?" Harry asks and his friends shrug in harmony.

"He's around," Josh says. "You took so long to get here. What happened?"

"Yoshi tried to run away by the stairs and I had to chase him, which means I'm done with exercises for the week."

"You make me so proud," Bear mocks, running one of his hands through Harry's arm.

"Says the Olympic athlete," Axel laughs. "Harry, do you wanna look for your friend?"

Harry swallows a smile. He literally has to put the saliva in this mouth down his throat in order not to grin smugly. _Look for your friend,_ oh yeah, sure. When he finally gets it together and looks up at Axel, he shakes his head in agreement and the older boy goes first, making way through people.

It's an impulsive and cheesy gesture, but Harry puts his fingers over Axel's. They're not _holding hands,_ the younger boy is only touching his fingers with his and running his nails on his skin. Even if it looks like they're holding each other's hand, they're not and that's what matters.

What matters, too, is that Axel quickly turns his head back and smiles, which was weird, because he really wasn't a smiling type of person – even though he did that way more than Josh, but then again, who didn't?

Harry can't help but notice every tiny detail about him. Short dark hair, button-up jeans shirt rolled up his elbows, tanned skin – honestly, where did Axel find time to tan? –, dark pants that ended by his ankles just like... _Louis'._

 _Oh, shoot,_ Louis was there and he was staring. For some reason, that pesters Harry like crazy, because Monday morning at school he would be all "I saw Harry with his boyfriend and had to stop myself from throwing up in my own mouth" and laughs and selfishness. Funny that.

He'd promised he would leave Harry alone but the boy had just given him the image he needed to put down the so-called white flag.

Harry take his fingers off of Axel's abruptly, thus he turns around. Even though they're still in front of the stage and everything is noisy and messy, Axel asks if he's okay, immediately noticing the uncomfortable expression around his green eyes.

"I just wanna get out of here," he has to lean to Axel's body to reach his ear, which only makes the situation worse. "There's this boy from school right besides us and he's really rude about...my sexual orientation."

"Who?" Axel asks. His face is the face of someone who's having way too much fun as he rests one hand on Harry's waist. "Show me."

"Uh," Harry scratches the back of his head. "Do you really want to...?"

"Yeah, what's the matter?" he smiles again, looking into Harry's eyes, who feels his cheeks burning. "Why don't you stop worrying about boys and worry about men instead, babe?"

"It's just that... I don't... I..." he makes a ridiculous attempt to speak.

_What was that._

Why are my pants this tight.

"Come on, show me who he is."

"All right, don't look now. He's in your right wearing a Marvel's shirt and hugging a blonde girl by the waist."

Axel turns his head immediately and his eyes meet Louis'. _Good job,_ Harry almost slaps his own forehead.

"He doesn't like the fact that you're gay?" his eyes are still squeezed in delight. _Oh, you wouldn't find this game fun if you had to play it every other day,_ Harry thinks.

"He... well, him and his friends are very hard on me because of it."

"He'll get flustered, then. Either because he'll love it too much or because he'll hate it too much."

"Hate what?" Harry asks, feeling lost.

"Me kissing you," he says and doesn't even give Harry a second to react, attaching his part-open lips to the younger boy's ones and pulling him closer by the waist. He is as greedy for Harry's kiss as only a person who waited six months for that could be.

Harry knows he is supposed to shut his brain and simply enjoy the moment, but he can't help but wonder why did Axel seem to be so into that. Goddammit. He was kissing him good. Why was he even attracted to Harry in the first place?

Whatever his reasons were, Harry owned them a lot, because that was absolutely incredible, even more when Axel sneakily slides one hand over his bum and then holds his face, skittering his lips on the boy's and _smiling._ Then he walks away. The biggest "fuck it" in the world to Louis and the fact that he was staring at them.

Who were they looking for again? Casp. But not while Axel drags Harry to the smoking area by the hand – there were only two smiling girls out there, and they definitely wouldn't leave. 2 + 2 definitely equals 4 when one of the 2 were such hot dudes. That is their thought until things get even better; when Harry is pressed against a wall and kissed to the point his lungs don't know what is air anymore.

He rests his hands on the wall behind Harry and stops the kiss, exhaling deeply against his rosy artful lips. He crashes his mouth onto Harry's cheek, sliding a thumb across his rugged jawline.

"Is it acceptable being like that already?" he motions his chin towards the quick yet sure of itself erection underneath his pants.

"You tell me," Harry breathes and looks at his own bulge.

"We're being watched," Axel says in a lewd, barely audible voice tone. "One more turn-on, I suppose."

"It looks like they want to in between us," Harry looks at his lips.

"I would ask them to join us... but I'm too selfish," he bites Harry's lips hard to prove his point and Harry cannot help but glare at the girls. They had just lit up a second cigarette as a pretext to keep watching the two boys going rough on each other. He pulls the best lusted face he can and bends his knees slightly. Two birds, one stone: one of the girls arches her eyebrow challengingly and Axel grunts against Harry's lips.

The way Axel's body fits and weights into his is provoking to Harry and makes him want to forget about all of his principles regarding sex on the first night – well, at least he thought he had some. It is unbelievable that someone he wasn't familiar with – at least not in that aspect – could make his body react in such way.

He'd _waited_ for it, for the blood running twice as fast in his veins for touching Harry that closely. Bear had told Axel way too many times how he felt about the situation; he considered waiting for someone the dumbest thing ever. Plus, he couldn't understand why was Harry so desirable. Axel had many other dudes he could be with, older ones that were, for sure, a lot savvier, but they didn't made him feel the way Harry did; with that stupid need to keep touching his shoulder while they talked and laugh at his jokes and another embarrassing things.

 _Why him, bro?_ , Axel's best friend loved to ask. And, fuck, Axel had never said it out loud, but because there was something about the boy with green eyes, rosy lips and flawless smile that was more than green eyes, rosy lips and flawless smile. He was just so adorable and cute. He had this glow in his eyes and this will to please people, make them happy. Harry would always let his problems aside, like the constant fights with his ex-boyfriend, to worry about other people – even before the stupidest situations, like Josh being mad over basketball tickets. In addition, there was his gentle, almost lazy way of talking. The fact that he was a good friend, above all, and how much fun him and Axel had together. His amazing tattoos – that he never bothered to explain to anyone – and the pretty legs. _Something._

If Axel told Bear that, the boy would either say _you're so fucking lame_ or _dude, these are the things everyone loves about Harry. You just wanna bang him, that's all._

The two of them start hearing applauses all of a sudden, which makes them jump against each other. Josh & the Lame Gang had just gotten to the smoking area, laughing, applauding and making things awkward for Harry and Axel.

"Hide your hard-ons because we've just found Caspar!" Josh announces and bows down. Gabby and Colleen step aside, revealing a best friend blonder and definitely out of his usual sour-milk skin shade. 

Harry's heart jumps as if he had not yet gotten the heads-up that Cas would be there.

"Casp!" he shouts, running to him and giving him a long hug. Even though Caspar was squashed in between his arms, Harry still missed him.

"I'm just pretending I'm okay right now so your friends don't think I'm a freak, but I really need to get out of here and go somewhere we can talk," he murmurs near Harry's ear in a rush, hugging him back and trying his best to look excited. Half of his heart was filled with joy for seeing his best friend again, but the other half was drowning in _things_ that he couldn't leave behind, not even for the night. He really could use a long talk with his brother.

"Guess what," Harry says to the others when him and Cas finally let go of the grip. "Someone here doesn't know how to drink tequila properly. I think we'll get a coffee or something."

He looks at Gabby silently, hoping she'll go along with it.

"Coffee heals everything!" she gets it. "See you guys tomorrow, then?"

"Oh, yeah!" Caspar opens a wide smile. "I'm going to crash at Harry's and we can hang out tomorrow. Nice to meet you, guys."

A long session of hugs follow, because Caspar deserved it for being so cool to hang out with, and then they hug Harry, because he was always a good company. Axel kisses him quickly.

"My eyes burn," Josh says.

"You're all so screwed," Axel laughs and pushes Bear's shoulder lightly, which makes the rest of them be pushed too, like domino pieces. "Leave me alone."

"Nah, keep annoying him. Ain't no rest for the wicked, I've heard," Harry smiles with his tongue between his teeth, looking him in the eyes.

Josh and Colleen howl.

"Wicked?" Axel asks, following him inside and raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah. Please, be morally wrong to me," he winks and starts walking away.

"I'll be morally wrong _with_ you," he wets his lips, not really on purpose, but Harry stares at him anyway. All right, whatever floats his boat.

"Good," he finishes and follows Caspar out the lounge.

Axel spots the Marvel boy in the crowd and winks, turning his back at him right after.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caspar's sad.

Casp was a lovely guy. His sense of humor was very questionable and, sometimes, he sat on a bench of Pioneer Square next to tourists and started making friendly conversation until they ended up talking about sex. He was loud and liked to talk motioning his arms in really ridiculous ways, which never failed to make Harry laugh even though it irritated most people, at least 'til they got used to it and everything became a bed of roses. He was really good at giving advice, even though he'd never take somebody's problems as seriously as them. Also, he got a kick out of squeezing people's bodies – actually, it was more of a pinch and it really, really hurt. He had a dirty mouth. And every day he would send a trip pic to Harry, whether it was of mountains, exotic fairs, sunsets at the beach or Casp himself sat on the toilet. There was this one of him eating deep-fried grasshoppers that Isabella got framed. He sent them because _"sharing is caring, bro. Wish you were here (pls don't listen to Pink Floyd and cry thinking of me again, that's just weird)"_.

Best thing about him, in Harry's opinion, was that he wasn't afraid of himself. Like, not at all. He never got slightly embarrassed for doing what he felt like doing, doesn't matter if it was going to the store on his pajamas; taking pictures of himself in the middle of a crowd; talking whatever he had to talk on the phone, even in public; attaching himself like he was a koala and his friends were trees even if formal situations.

Harry thought that was great. Even though he was still learning to care less, he thought that was an amazing personality trait, acquired or not. He had heard from someone, once, that you really shouldn't be scared of embarrassing yourself. It builds character.

Casp knew what to hold on to and what to let go. He was friends with himself – best decision he had ever made. Perhaps his only problem was that he was in a rush. He didn't want to miss anything about life. He felt unlucky for not having somebody to love.

Out of all the people in the world, the last one Harry expected to come to him and say "I'm not happy" was Caspar. He used to bring sunshine in his pocket, but now he just seemed tired.

To finally be face to face with Harry and let things out sounded a lot like medicine, so he sat on the sidewalk and talked about everything, even though he didn't know which were the _hows_ and _whens_ of his mess. The fact that he wasn't always lighthearted anymore just happened, and, the more he talked, the more Harry was sure: the world didn't play fair.

 _i'm not happy._ i'm not happy in a strange way. i still laugh and make jokes and am able to spend the day at krispy kreme like my stomach has no size when it comes to doughnuts. i'm not even kidding. last wednesday i ate 12 doughnuts before my stomach started going against it. and then i started feeling like i was about to die, and it was _bad._ the problem is i've been feeling like i'm dying the entire time, not because of a stomachache, but 'cause i don't have any will anymore.

i don't think people realize what's moving them is their own will until one day they wake up and it's not there anymore. i don't know what takes away the witty side of people, so let's just say it's a bunch of things, right? i mean, people become sick at heart for so many reasons it's just... i don't know. it just strikes me as unfair that there are so many reasons that can make someone sad rather than happy.

do you even know what's the definition of 'witty'? something that's amusingly clever in conception or execution. life's is usually witty, or at least it should be. it's this spider web in which everything is interconnected in a funny, intelligent way. and now things are just... _dumb._ i'm living a life that controls itself in a completely stupid, purposeless way. it seems like i can't make it understand that things are not going my way.

i feel lost and empty, and that makes me see myself as the worst villain of all stories ever written, because it isn't fair that i'm living all those breathtaking things and i simply can't love them with all my heart. you think you gotta go far and see stuff to be happy, but you just gotta be at peace with yourself, dude. at the end of the day, doesn't matter if up or down the equator line, i still can't stop thinking of how wrong everything feels.

i am supposed to connect the dots by myself and i simply don't know which goes with which. that's so frustrating. i chew over my reasons to be in this state of mind and everything seems like such nonsense, like it isn't worth it to stay like this for something so stupid, but i can't help it. at the end of the day, everything comes down to a teeny tiny thing. i finally understand lucy.

do you remember lucy? that one who went to school with us for eight years and then disappeared, and people still don't know if she committed suicide or not. that's some heavy shit, man... i remember her like it was yesterday. i really liked lucy and, except for brittany, no names of people who hated her come to mind. i'm sure there were lots that didn't care about her, because there's no way every people that see you give a damn, even if they see you on a daily basis. you remember the day she was on the edge and ended up telling us that she would start being homeschooled? _because she didn't feel pretty, harry._

i remember asking myself for weeks why feeling pretty was so important to lucy and maybe i finally get it. she convinced herself not being pretty was the same as not being loved. the bad image she had of herself killed her will. she let it grow inside her. it started off with "can't go to school looking like that" and ended up with "can't live this life looking like that". you know? i'm trying to be very careful with what i say to myself, because being alone now can become being alone forever if i set my mind to it.

everything was just fine today. your mates are really nice and i'm glad you made up for the fact you can't really hang out with or relate to anybody at school. we were waiting for you so axel and i talked a lot 'cause bear couldn't stop saying how i should be your best man – by the way, is his name really bear or that's just a nickname? axel is nice and handsome, bro, so way to go. anyway, i went to get myself a beer and there was this really hot girl near the stage, kind of detached from everybody. talking to her was almost... instinctive.

we talked for about 20 minutes and i couldn't decide if i wanted to kiss her or not, so i just ended up leaving. i'm tired of 'ordinary'. so, so tired of going for someone despite barely talking to them. we clearly weren't two pieces of a whole randomly meeting at a bar, we could barely go beyond the new york/seattle/plans for college topics. in a few days her name wouldn't be the only thing i didn't remember, but her face and everything else, and kissing her would become another one of the meaningless things i did.

that's why i'm so blue, man, and i feel embarrassed for caring so much about this sort of thing. i'm sounding like a little girl, but the truth is the truth whether you like it or not. i took into consideration i've probably had sex millions times in the past years, but everything was so fleeting. when i woke up the girl wasn't there anymore, you know what i mean? i wasn't fucking or kissing someone whom i could suddenly stare, or joke with, or say something that wouldn't make any sense, or hug and rub my nose in their shoulder, playfully slap their bum, laugh in the middle of the sex. you know what they say, if you can't laugh in bed with someone, you're sleeping with the wrong person. i wasn't with anyone i was intimate to, even though we were definitely doing a very intimate thing. there wasn't any feeling and, eventually, it wasn't that fun anymore.

do you remember that story of greek mythology? in which the humans were originally created with four legs and arms and two heads? and zeus, fearing their power, split them apart and sentenced them to live in search for their other halves? _that's it._ guess i was able to live my life without being in love with anyone until now. it seems like my race has just started and i'm only living to miss something i don't have. the silliest things are making my heart sink and that's sickening. valentine's day was _hell._ it's been almost eighteen years without a single day being in love, bro.

why is the world like that, man? don't i deserve somebody? _i'm starting to think that i don't deserve anybody._

That was something Harry didn't have the answer to. He sure wasn't the one to explain why the world was the way it was or why one of the best people he knew had to go through that bitterness. There would be a day, though, where both of them would wake up, fit every tiny piece together and thank everything around them for having their own timing.

Missing something you've never even had. Was there a worse kind of void to ever exist?

And was there something greater than the moment it started being filled-up?

"Just wait for it," Harry says, laying his head on Caspar's shoulder.

⊹⊹⊹

Caspar was sleeping like a baby while Harry tossed and turned in bed, so much he was starting to get hot. He was worried and horny, the perfect combination for him to go look for some relief. He believed his hands alone would not be enough and that's why he texts Axel, even though it was four in the morning and he could be too drunk or asleep. Harry would not want any of those. He couldn't blame Axel, though. If it wasn't for Cas, the green-eyed boy would be in the same situation.

_Up?_

Yes.

Drunk?

Dizzy.

So I'm taking my keys to meet you.

!

Where are u?

Tompkins Square Park. If you get here soon, I can give you my last beer.

And something else?

Definitely.

Everything happens too fast and starts with Harry hitting the gas pedal. The more he has to stop at red lights, the more the air seems to get heavy inside the car and sit right between his legs, getting the boy high on the thought of what was about to happen. His hands slide on the steering wheel and The Neighbourhood plays loudly. Harry only turns the music down when he parks near Avenue A, his eyes not daring to scan around looking for Axel. It doesn't take long to the man himself walk to the car and get in it, going straight to Harry's lap, who barely manages to lock the doors again. A very brief and heavy greeting leaves Axel's mouth before it attacks Harry's. His back almost hits the car horn.

Harry's mind, this time, really isn't that analytical and he does what he does without thinking twice, like moving the car seat down and taking Axel's shirt off, even though they're parked in an avenue and there's people passing by – it doesn't happen twice, thank God. And thank humanity for tinted windows. The boy somehow manages to take it all in; the feeling and the image of Axel being there with him.

It all suddenly turns into a silent war. Harry was very controlling at such times but then again, so was Axel. The older one's biting and sucking on Harry's neck, probably leaving a few marks there, not only because of how eagerly his mouth was working, but also because of his beard. It wasn't like the younger one was simply going to let that be. He grabs a handful of Axel's hair and stares into his eyes.

"Are we really playing this game?" he murmurs, staring back, and opens a small smile.

"No," the boy answers with a crooked smile and bites Axel's shoulder without letting go of his hair. "I've already won."

He pushes the college boy's waist forward until his bum is on Harry's knees. That makes Axel be all opened up, which is an undeniable invitation for Harry to use his fingers the best way he can. They need a messy pause for Axel to take his pants off on the other seat when the dark-haired boy is finally ready and, once he's back on Harry's lap, The Neighbourhood isn't so loud anymore, since all the moans and raspy breaths take over the space.

Axel realizes that those green eyes of Harry's were not always so sweet.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Louis name their fish.

Harry and Louis stay late at school so they can figure out how to start the project. They were in the empty soccer field because Louis wouldn't stop saying that he could think more clearly there, even though they weren't really _thinking,_ but googling about betta fishes. They had gotten theirs only a few hours earlier. It was blue and purple and, since then, the only conversation the boys made happened because of Louis, who said (countless times): _let's head to the soccer field, I feel like my mind works better there_ and _our fish is so much more awesome than the rest of the people's._

When they start to research about the fish, though, talking does not seem like a matter of choice anymore. Harry is laying on the grass and holding his phone up – and, of course, he eventually drops it on his face, which makes Louis laugh non-stopping for almost five minutes – and Louis is sat by his side staring at the tiny aquarium, as if he hoped the betta would do something interesting any moment now.

"I think it's best to leave it under some shadow," Harry points out. "Here says that, if we leave it in the sun the water will heat, and then we'll go somewhere else and the water will cool down. These changes aren't good for the fish."

"He'll be fine!" Louis says, sliding his index finger on the glass. "There's no shady spot around here anyways."

"Okay then," he snorts. "It hasn't ate the food Mr. Fleming threw in there yet. You think it's stressed out?"

"Probably," Louis shrugs. "People say betta fishes are really moody."

"The perfect child for you, then."

"Ha-ha! Not funny."

They stay in silence for a few moments. Louis sits closer to Harry so he can read what is in the phone screen. Harry looks at him, feeling uncomfortable, but does not say a thing. And, for the record, taking care of the fish was not going to be nearly as easy as they initially thought it would.

"We should get a bigger aquarium," Louis says.

"We aren't going to keep the thing for more than a month."

"What does it have to do with getting a bigger aquarium?" he rolls his blue eyes. "If we don't please him, he will never like his own dads."

"We aren't its _dads._ "

"Excuse _you._ "

"I'm not the dad of a fish."

"Well, you will be the _death_ of a fish if you don't get him a bigger aquarium. Plus, why are you even trying to fight this?"

"I'll stop when I grow a fish tail."

"Oh please, Little Mermaid. According to Mr. Fleming we are his dads, and guess who's the teacher? He is, not you."

Harry huffs loudly.

"Who's the moody one now?" Louis mutters.

"Okay, all right, we can get it a bigger aquarium if that's the problem," Harry looks at Louis, who smiles in satisfaction. Apparently, he would not stop getting what he wanted.

"Let's put little plants in it."

"God."

"And give him a name."

"Dude. Don't be clingy, it's just a fish."

"I'm taking this project seriously," Louis shrugs. "Let me know if you'd rather do everything by yourself, Scar."

"Don't 'Scar' me," Harry rolls his eyes. So now _he_ was the insensitive one? All right. Might as well push Louis off a cliff. "Whatever," he shakes his head and gets back to trying to memorize all that information about the thing.

See? Not insensitive at all.

"How do you like Fish?" Louis asks excitedly, smiling to the animal inside the aquarium and trying to get it to follow his finger unsuccessfully.

"Why are you so _happy?_ " Harry widens his eyes and Louis ignores the question.

"So, let's call him Fish?"

"Isn't it a female?"

"I don't know. Is she?"

"Apparently so, according to the Internet's description."

"Savannah, then."

"I don't really care, Lou," the boy lets the old nickname he used for Louis slip, widening his eyes again as if he had just committed the biggest mistake ever. Louis clears his throat audibly and stammers the fish's name again, and the tension and discomfort between them hit the boys, say, right in their noses. _Nice._

Harry considers the possibility of sticking his hand in the grass and start digging a hole to jump in but that would take too long, so he just gets up and mentions to leave. His his intention is interrupted by the sight of a very, _very_ angry Gabby heading towards the boys. She's marching to Harry and Louis, eyebrows so furrowed it seems like they will become one.

"What the hell are you two doing together?" she is very close to yelling. Louis does not even bother to listen, too distracted by Savannah to pay attention to whatever tell off Harry's best friend had in store for them.

"What's up?" Harry asks.

"What's up? _What's up,_ Harry? I read Mr. Fleming's board today. Are you really going to do this assignment with this... person? I thought finding him a douchebag was common ground for us."

"Yo, hello, I'm right here!" Louis protests.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Gabby says sarcastically. "Are we supposed to respect you? Because that's what you've been doing to us the entire year, right?"

"I've never even said a thing to you," the boy with the blue eyes and the thin beard opens a slightly mockingly smile.

"Well, you bullied my best friend the entire year so I believe it's reasonable I...--"

"Gabby," Louis clicks his tongue and slaps the air. "We've already sorted things out. You don't have to worry."

"Excuse you, dude," the girl smiles. "Harry, you're not doing this thing with him."

" _Why you babysitting?_ " Louis starts singing Swimming Pools and Harry glares at him.

"Really, man?" he rolls his eyes. Louis shrugs. "Gabriela, it was the _cookie!_ "

"What?" she and the older boy ask at the same time.

"Never mind."

"I won't let you humiliate yourself like that. I'm serious, Harry. Mr. Fleming said you can switch partners."

"Did you talk to him?" Harry asks, almost giving in. "I think I can... I mean, maybe Lou can..."

_Shit. Lou. Everything was so confusing and... Shit. He did it again._

"Hold on a sec," Louis squints, ignoring Harry calling him by his nickname again. That entire thing was not working. Not at all. "You guys are saying you will take Savannah away from me? Think again."

He rolls his eyes and holds the aquarium with both hands, striding away from them, completely angry. Now that he had named their fish and told his academic problems to Harry, he would not switch partners, no way, Gabriela and her paranoia could go to hell. He got it that he had not been the kindest person throughout the year, but he already promised Harry he would not bother him anymore; he really wouldn't. He had even kept his mouth shut about the boy he was hooking up with on Saturday – like, he wouldn't even want to say anything if it wasn't for the hostile looks the stranger was giving him.

Harry looked like a fucking trophy one-night stand in his arms. What a fucking twat. He could do better.

He knew it would not be easy to redeem. School year was about to end and truth was his guilt about everything he had done to Harry was starting to get under his skin. All he wanted was a chance to try and show he never meant to hurt anyone – he just got carried away by a terrible situation. He had been selfish and arrogant and maybe that was very unfair, indeed, so why couldn't Gabriela get out of the way and let him fix things, even in his messy, far-from-ideal way?

"It's just you and I today, Savannah," the boy says to the aquarium under his arm while waiting for the bus. The heat was so uncalled for. _Not today, sun, go find something else to do,_ he thinks bitterly.

Worst thing was he suspected that, at the end of the day, Gabriela would end up getting what she wanted. She hated him more than Harry did and Louis considered that a mark hard to be beaten. That was probably what he deserved, though. Karma had not been a bitch in a long, long time, and he should've foreseen things would not stay so smooth for much longer. Why would the Universe give him a chance to make up for the things he had done, after all?

_Live with the guilt, Louis, make good use of it._

Fucking hell.

He would have to have an honest, serious conversation with Gabriela.

⊹⊹⊹

What Louis and Gabriela talk the next morning cannot be repeated since the boy does not feel comfortable enough to let his emotions be exposed like that. He was not at all like Harry, that is, a massive crybaby always up for some personal conversation. What matters is he says enough to stop Gabby from interfering on the situation. She tells Harry she's out as soon as they run into each other. Not that the girl agreed with what they were doing, but kudos to Louis if he wanted to try. Let that be another one of world's little miracles. If there were two things Gabby didn't think she would live long enough to see, they were Louis trying to be a better person and a shooting star (where did they hide, after all?)

She was constantly trying to be someone better, Harry was constantly trying to be someone better... If anything, the girl would not want to be the determinant factor that stopped Louis from doing the same, even though, deep down, she believed he would fail in his quest. You do not change water to wine overnight, but Louis didn't seem to be aware of that. He really thought he could do it and that was all he needed.

Having Gabby's endorsement was not important to Louis since she would still hate him at the end of the day, but it did make things easier.

At lunch break, Louis follows Harry to his car, which is kind of creepy. He was not stalking him or anything, he just happened to see Harry walking to the parking lot instead of the cafeteria and grabbed the chance to talk to him alone before he could switch partners.

"Harry!" Louis calls out as soon as the green-eyed boy unlocks the car doors. Harry jumps on his feet and snarls.

"You scared me!" he complains.

"It's not like you've never done this to me before," he tries to gather some patience by taking a deep breath and leans into one side of the car. His first impulse is to turn his pockets looking for the cigarettes pack, and he lights one up so fast Harry does not even have time to protest. Of course Harry's _terms_ had been ignored, why was that surprising to him at that point?

"Don't smoke around me."

Louis just laughs, sucking the little white stick and puffing the smoke to the opposite side of where Harry was. The other boy snorts and folds his arms over the red checked shirt.

"Didn't know you liked wearing snapbacks," Louis says, pointing to the reversed black cap on Harry's head. He knew he was pushing it but it did not make sense to treat him hostilely anymore.

Something inside his head was completely twisted.

"What. Do. You. Want?"

"Where are you going?"

"Louis, what do you want?" Harry grits his teeth.

"Just talk. We can do this over lunch if you want. As in I can come with."

"Uh... No? What's the matter with you?"

"Okay, Harry, _fine,_ " Louis rolls his eyes, starting to get irritated, and takes another drag. "I just wanted to say I talked to Gabby. It's okay if we do the assignment together and very funny that she basically tells you what to do."

"She already told me. And, just so you know, she's just trying to be protective," he opens the door. "Apparently, I'm too soft and forgive too easily, even the ones who don't deserve it."

With that, he gets in the car and backs it up, which makes Louis, who was leaning on it, stagger and curse Harry. The fact that they could not get along was as official as the existence of only one moon in the sky.

Unless you're thinking of Mars.

So, okay, not that official.

He shrugs and goes have lunch. He had half an hour to eat and then his day would get perfect. May and June were the best months of the year because the Interstate got closer each day and the school dismissed the team from the last periods so they could practice. The meal of the day was mashed potatoes with black bean burritos and, _man,_ sometimes Louis missed some meat in that school. He grabs a plate anyway and sits at his usual table, where Chad and Jace were arm wrestling.

"Where were you?" Ashley, the blondie that was starting to get too clingy after so many hook-ups, asks and puts her chair closer to Louis'.

"Parking lot," he answers and sticks the burrito in his mouth.

"Doing what?"

"Smoking."

"You could've asked me to come with," she mewls.

"You don't smoke," the boy turns his head to her, trying not to roll eyes.

"I know, but I like other things in my mouth," she says and their friends howl. Chad and Jace even stop their strength display to clap and Louis forces a smile, nodding. That was the foundation of his relationship with his ex-girlfriend: head bobs.

All it takes is Louis pointing his chin to the cafeteria's exit and she gets up. As soon as they find an empty bathroom, there is more of that, Ashley going up and down on Louis. The boy could picture himself spending time with a certain types of girls if he tried hard enough, but Ashley was too skanky for his liking. She wasn't a fan of Louis either. The week before she called him 'trash', so the boy had no clue why were they still doing that. She could stick to her agenda with Chad, start dating him for real and spare Louis from pretending he enjoyed being alone with her.

At least his dick still got hard for her. He was dead inside, sure, but his dick was fine.

Yay.

⊹⊹⊹

There was love – in its all shapes – or lust happening in several spots of the city. Louis and Ashley. Colleen and Bear. Harry and Caspar. Julian and his mom, who had just got back from a trip. It was a good day for everyone, almost like there was an invisible web passing on the same vibration to the group of friends – or, counting Louis, acquaintances.

Harry and Caspar were at Hudson River walkway throwing M&M's in the water to see who could get the candies further. The green-eyed boy had this strange habit of stablishing silly goals for himself and, if he could reach them, that would mean one more day of good luck in life.

"So, are you really giving up the ship today?" Harry asks, reaching out his arm the best he can to throw a yellow M&M at the water.

" _We_ are giving up the ship, man," Caspar says. "Aren't you meeting Axel?"

"Fair enough. You and Gabby always make plans, don't you? Have you ever thought of moving in here and marrying her?"

"Yes," Caspar smiles.

"What the... Are you serious?" Harry widens his eyes at his best friend.

"Of course not, idiot," Caspar rolls his eyes, getting a yuck-brown M&M at least one feet further than Harry's last one.

"I never got to tell you but, the other day, she beat us on our own game."

"Which one?"

"Metaphors. She said life's like a banana bread with only one banana inside, a constant chase for the good bits."

They played since TFIOs. Harry openly cried and Casp pretended there was something in his eye.

"The struggle is real."

"Yeah... You tell my mom that."

"Every time, man," Caspar laughs.

"You know when you're eating a saucy sandwich and a drop falls on your shirt? Hold the sandwich," Harry holds something in the air, encouraging Caspar to do the same. "You know?"

"Yeah?" Caspar holds in some laughter, too. "Unpleasant, sure, but it would be worse to not have the sandwich at all."

"Sure, whatever. You try to clean your shirt with one hand and the sandwich is still on the other. What happens?"

"I'm not sure."

"When you finally get to clean the sauce off your shirt, the sandwich tilts and more sauce drops on your pants. _That's_ life."

"So encouraging, bro," Caspar mocks. "Should I be happy about that?"

"I don't know, man. This is like, take the stained clothes or go home. Right?" Harry shrugs and kisses Caspar's forehead, waving and heading to his car. He was going to see Axel again, not really sure if doing so wouldn't leave a mess.

He definitely didn't need any more stains.

⊹⊹⊹

"You know I'm skipping class, don't you?" Harry asks with a slack smile on his lips, leaning into the driver's seat for a few seconds while Axel does not get in the car. For some reason he just stands at the door without smiling, just squinting his eyes in amusement. He and Josh were spending way too much time together. "So, are you getting in or not?"

"Well," the dark-haired boy shrugs and lazily flaps his long, long eyelashes. "I know you drove an entire hour to get to NYU and despite knowing you did it because you _wanted_ to and not because I _asked_ you to, I'll make it up to you."

"Very sure of everything, are we?" Harry arches his eyebrows. "Who says it wasn't a huge pain in the ass to come all the way here?"

"Harry, baby, I know you like to drive," Axel arches his eyebrows too but, unlike Harry, he does it conclusively. "So, would you like to see my apartment?"

"Man," the boy starts laughing all of a sudden, laying his head on the seat while his belly twitches. "That wasn't subtle at all."

"Wasn't supposed to be," he says. "But if you want to blame it on something, keep in mind the way you're chewing your gum."

"What's wrong with that?"

" _Nothing._ That's the problem. It's kind of provoking, if you wanna know what I think."

"I don't," the boy says playfully and laughs. Axel rolls his eyes, slamming the car door. He was not mad. On the contraire, he was used to Harry's jokes – that could be something to add to the list, Harry's sense of humor.

Harry shakes his head, mainly thinking about two things: how was he chewing the gum, because he had to take a mental note to do that way more often; and how he hadn't even had lunch yet and he would totally bang Axel in his apartment, which felt like a total and delightful intrusion. Every time he went to a party, he felt just like that: nervous and apprehensive. As soon as the car is parked, Axel leads the way into the university, pointing to buildings of different departments, and this way the butterflies in his stomach start to settle down and turn into a warm sensation between his legs. He wasn't, at all, paying attention to what Ax was saying, but to the way his lips moved and how amazing his jawline looked when he rambled about Engineering.

The boy did not know how exactly he was supposed to be feeling – maybe flattered by the invitation and by the little University tour –, but that warmness seemed appropriate enough. Every now and then, Axel waves at people, which makes Harry want to laugh.

"You seem quite popular for an engineer."

"Don't underestimate our kind," Axel squints.

"I gotta tell you something," Harry says suddenly and Axel turns his head to him, looking relaxed. "I did not drive one hour here. I was actually at the Hudson walkway with Casp."

"Oh," he raises his eyebrows, doing a little circle with his lips. "You lied, then?"

"Yeah, kind of. I didn't want you to interrupt your historical stuff project or anything."

"Lying is not cheap, baby."

"Well..." the boy shrugs nonchalantly, knowing that his debt with Axel would not go much further than the edges of his mattress. "I'll pay you little by little, then. We live so close to each other."

They had just crossed the Arts & Sciences campus of New York University when Harry noticed they were on 5th Avenue. Of course he knew he lived close to the University but, honestly, sometimes he simply forgot about it. Their apartments were only a few minutes distant from each other and that could not mean restlessness.

They most certainly would start _bothering_ each other on a regular basis. Wasn't it magnificent that, days ago, Harry was complaining about not having anybody, not even a booty call and, all of a sudden, the odds changed? That was more than he would've dared to ask for.

Axel was handsome, interesting, passive and lived just a few blocks away from Harry's apartment. That was all he was going to need for the moment and he really, really hoped things would just stay the way they currently were: no craving for love, just skin, small talks and tons of wet kisses.

"Good to know," Axel murmurs in conclusion. _Ain't no rest..._

⊹⊹⊹

"Shiz," Gabriela complains, feeling the wind mess her hair while the mild-sun sits on the top of her head. "We should've met somewhere else. The wind's crazy."

"It's the margin of Hudson River. What did you expect?"

"A different idea?" Gabby suggests, shrugging, and goes sit next to Caspar on the ground. She leans into the white fence, sticking her hands in her pockets and fishing for a Milky Way bar.

" _Midnight Dark,_ " Cas says with a hiss. "What a little rebel."

Gabby rolls her dark-blue eyes while licking the caramel stuck on her fingers. She holds out the candy to the boy, who bites at least ¼ of it. She makes a sound with the back of her throat.

"Welcome to the Hunger Games, New York. What's your special talent?"

He laughs.

"Well, I'm not trying to brag here but... you know, I did watch all Lord of the Rings movies without falling asleep."

"Not even once?"

"Gabbers, please," he puffs. "What's yours?"

"I know how to nickiminaj without stuttering?" she twists her lips.

"Doesn't count. Only Nicki Minaj knows how to nickiminaj," he shrugs.

"So I'm a useless human being."

"To be fair, that's only news for _you._ "

She laughs and elbows him lightly on the stomach. He laughs, too, and rests his head on the fence, closing his eyes.

The wind blowing was not the best thing in the world but Cas did not want to complain, fearing Gabby would suggest they'd go somewhere else. He wanted to stay there. It was a nice place; it could almost make NY feel like home.

He was stuck on a love-and-hate relationship with the city. Sometimes, being there was somewhat chaotic. Harry was his extent of peace among so many people, noises, places. His best friend made it easier to consider actually moving in there.

He'd have the rest of the year to be done with traveling – at least for a while. The boy wanted to go to Thailand next, which he tells Gabby a few minutes later. By December, he could get back to New York and spend Christmas with the Styles; his parents sure wouldn't mind, they never did. Harry could help him find a nice place in January. It was easy to picture him walking around apartments with his head tilted, trying to see if there was any leaks on the roof or mold on the walls. "I just want you to have a nice home," he'd say, knowing that, in the end, Caspar's home would end up being his home, too.

That was an option. That was definitely an option.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis asks about Harry's tattoos.

"I'm upset."

That is the first thing Louis says when he gets in Harry's car with Savannah in the aquarium he is holding. He moves his hips on the seat and furrows his eyebrows approvingly to how soft they were. Like, he didn't know car seats could be that soft taking in consideration that the ones in his mom's Range Rover seemed to be made out of rocks – which was not likely, was it?

"You're _late,_ " Harry corrects him, takes a deep breath and finally starts the Mercedes. He and _his_ partner would go to his apartment to get the Biology assignment started. Harry looked up on the Internet and doing a paper about animal's night vision seemed all right, even sort of fun, to be honest.

"I know," Louis shrinks for a moment like he was genuinely sorry, but then he gets back to sitting straight. "Seriously though, I'm _also_ upset."

"Why?" the green-eyed boy asks aversely, crossing Nuthatches' gate. There were barely any students leaving the school that late, which made Louis' lateness even more evident. That would be explainable if he had showered, since he was in soccer practice, but not even that. The boy was sweaty, his hair was messy and the cheeks flushed. Moreover, he was wearing his uniform – it was white, blue and grey, the colors of a nuthatch feather.

"I was looking for funny fishes videos and didn't find any. Honestly, I was hoping we could teach this girl some tricks, it would be an easy A."

"Now you're just being ridiculous," Harry shakes his head, pressing his lips together to keep from laughing. He was almost sure his nostrils were a bit flared, too – that always happened when he tried not to laugh. "It's _just_ a fish."

"Why do I feel like you don't love her, sometimes?"

"Because I don't."

"You need to let yourself be carried away."

"No I don't."

" _Savannah_ needs you," Louis insists and puts the cold aquarium in touch with Harry's nude arm. The boy quivers lightly when the object meets his skin. He ends up letting out a laugh, even though he rolls his eyes while doing so, which makes Louis feel satisfied. Just a little laugh was enough. He smiles with closed lips and puts the aquarium back on his lap.

When his eyes jump to Harry's arms for the second time, he can't stop staring at the ink.

There was an endless line of cars ahead of them and Louis swallows hard, knowing that leaving the school so late was his fault. He just got a bit distracted practicing some kick-ups and, besides that, he didn't want to leave at the same time as the other guys since he wouldn't have a reasonable explanation to be getting in the car of someone who, a week before, was being made fun of by the entire team.

He still was made fun of, actually. Except it was not by the entire team anymore. Louis was keeping his promise.

"You tats are sick, man. It's funny that you have this padlock on your wrist because I have a key on my ankle."

Harry lets out a heavy breath through his mouth, feeling his entire abdomen tighten while he does so. _IdontwannahearIdontwannahearIdontwannahear._

A long minute goes on without neither of them saying a word but, then, Louis decides to bring some diligence to the table. He was having at least three problems with the silence:

1) He had just exercised, which was something he loved doing, and his body was releasing some endorphin. In other words, he was all happy and talkative;

2) Besides the endorphin, his hyperactivity seemed to be stronger than usual, since he couldn't stop fidgeting on the seat (which he didn't believe was provided by any kind of awkwardness);

3) His goal was to get Harry to forgive him and they wouldn't make much progress if the only thing they ever talked about was school or Savannah.

"I got this one because of Dungeons & Dragons, you know? Don't even try to say 'no', I remember you rambling about this."

"What does a key has anything to do with the cartoon?" Harry asks emotionlessly, keeping himself from looking for the key on Louis' bare ankle.

"Did you watch the alternate ending in which the six of them have to find a key that would make them go back to their world and throw it in an abyss? And the fact that Eric used the key in some lock saved all of his friends from death? It was genius."

" _No,_ " Harry whines, furrowing his eyebrows and looking straight to Louis, his interest for Dungeons & Dragons betraying his attempt to look indifferent. "Dammit, I didn't see this one!"

"It's all right," Louis laughs. "I can look it up on the Internet when we get to your apartment. Do you think it will take long?" he asks, pointing to the traffic congestion with his chin.

Harry just shrugs, feeling irritated all of a sudden. The boy didn't know how to deal with Louis, that was the thing. He remembers Axel saying he couldn't understand Harry's confusing signs and, well, Harry could say the same about Louis. His signs were not only confusing, but frustrating. He didn't know if he should put his armor down or keep hating the soccer player because he was clueless about what was Louis feeling.

So one day they were... friends. The other, enemies. Next, classmates doing assignments together. And, after that, former enemies talking as if no trouble had ever happened between them.

Louis _was_ being nice, but what for? It was not like Harry had forgotten everything the blue-eyed boy put him through. He couldn't understand why, all of a sudden, Louis wasn't trying hard to seem tough. He agreed to do the assignment at Harry's with no complaints and got in his car as if he ate sunrays and unicorns for lunch.

That wasn't Louis. Not the one Harry was still trying to get used to after almost two years. The Louis Harry always expected to run into was rude, arrogant, closed-off, reckless about other people's happiness (apparently he only had the ability to take good care of fishes) and, long story short, completely... _ugh. So frustrating._

What was he doing carrying an aquarium around, complimenting Harry's tattoos and talking about stuff they used to talk about before the Thing? What was he doing making conversation with Harry, like, at all? And, more importantly, what would be the great humiliation that would await Harry if he finally gave in?

He did not know. The boy was completely in the dark and that made him angry, anxious and, why not?, quite disappointed at himself. He was even worse than Axel when it came to figuring people out; a complete ignorant, a knight carrying a shield made of rice paper. Useless, useless, useless.

The boy in the uniform was terrible at figuring people out, too. It always took him so long to get facial expressions and little gestures right. Of course he wasn't made of ice, it was just hard for him. There was a beating heart in his chest cavity, for god's sake. A little asleep, maybe, but Savannah could probably warm it up. The thing was he was too distracted all the time or simply being practical. That was it: Louis was practical. As far as he was concerned, Harry didn't looked annoyed, not when his only anger displays were the grit teeth, straight lips and the little wring between his brows. To Louis, he looked _concentrated._

His lack of delicacy (or, hell, call it sensibility if you might) ended up turning into something positive, at least at that very moment. He didn't realize Harry was about to explode, so he kept talking, managing to break a little piece of the enormous iceberg surrounding Harry's willingness... all because he _recognized._ He caught Harry off guard.

"You've got so many tattoos of Alex T. Frazer drawings. Why is that?" Louis asks casually, looking over Harry's inked limb, and that almost makes the driver choke. Not the fact that Louis's eyes had suddenly became a barcode reader, obviously, but the one that he recognized.

"What? My tattoos are not... They have nothing to do with... Who's Alex?" the boy trips over words, controlling his huge urge to stop the car abruptly and kick Louis out of it.

"Harry, come on," Louis rolls his eyes. "They're either from Alex T. Frazer or a great plagiarist."

"There are many people who...I mean, it's not like...nautical tattoos are so common..." he tries but gives up soon after. His eyes do not dare even glancing at anything that is not the street in front of him. They were almost there, almost there, almost there. That drive felt almost as bad as driving with a full bladder, except worse.

He could not tell him. That was all water under the bridge now.

The reason why he never explained his tattoos to anyone ever was that he promised himself that the first one to know would be Louis. However, there it was, a perfect chance of bringing it all up and, still, he felt anything but ready.

After the Thing, they talked again one more time and one more time only. Harry was having trouble sleeping that night. His friends were at a Florence + The Machine concert and he did not make it because he had gotten the flu. It was past two when Louis called him. There were so many things Harry wanted to say to him... Yet, the only word that came out of his mouth was "hi".

No "I miss you", no "I love you", no "what happened? What's happening? Why are you doing this?". Just "hi".

And Louis said "do you want to listen to music with me?"

And Harry said "yes", so Lou played a bunch of songs in his bedroom and they listened to them together.

At four in the morning, Louis said he was going to hang up. Harry didn't know what to say. He thought he needed closure but, if that was it, he took his words back.

"Can you listen to one by yourself?" Louis asked.

Harry said "yes" again and, from that moment on, everything was too impulsive. Even though Louis had planned to call just to do that one thing, the second the title came out of his mouth it still caught scared him.

Louis said "Gay Pirates" in a chocked voice. Harry said "what color are my eyes?" in a chocked voice. When he chuckled, Harry thought he had no answer to that. Maybe he had already forgotten. A few seconds later, though, Louis said:

"Will you laugh at me if I say it? It's lame to...--"

"I won't."

"Your eyes are green. Cloudy jade green, Persian green, celadon green when you're in the sun. Tea green in flash pictures. And myrtle... And...--"

"Don't be pretentious, it's fucking green," Harry said and they laughed and Louis hung up and Harry cried and they never spoke on the phone again... Well, not until days ago.

Harry listened to Gay Pirates over and over until he memorized the lyrics, then he decided to get his first tattoo. The words to the song and the blue-eyed boy were on his mind when he got the ship on his triceps. He told himself that, when Louis called again, he'd tell about the tattoo, but Louis never did. So he got another one, Love & Luck right above where nurses stick needles in you. This time, he tried to tell himself that it had nothing to do with Lou but, as soon as the ink spotted his skin, there he was. Every trace was him. Every reason he had to think about love and luck was Louis. The last one was the rose on his elbow.

The rest was just the rest, pieces of his story that had nothing to do with Louis – it was, at times, odd to think they actually existed. Louis never asked about the rest. Something inside Harry said that he eventually would, though.

"We're here," he says and jumps out of the car, pressing the garage's remote insistently after parking carelessly.

 _What the hell am I running from?_ , is what Harry was asking himself while he watched the older boy instinctively press the 9 button in the elevator.

Louis knew that by heart.

⊹⊹⊹

When he enters the living room, he does not want to notice the changes. He does not want to notice the new couch or the Siamese cat sleeping on it. He does not want to notice how everything still had that sophisticated touch or the big painting signed by Harry's mom, Isabella Styles, hung on a wall. If she saw him now, she'd probably feel nausea instead of the fondness that was once familiar to the boy. He does not want to notice but he does and, finally, Louis feels uncomfortable for being in Harry's personal space.

The apartment smelled just like the green-eyed boy's clothes. It had the same smell, now, than it had years ago, and the familiarity of the scent feels like a punch on Louis' stomach. Despite the new color on the walls, the new furniture and the pet, that was still the same duplex apartment that, countless times, felt much more like a home to him than his own place. You'd expect the small apartment Louis lived in didn't feel so empty all the time, but that was not the case. 

Right now, Louis was a scared baby deer dressed in a casualty cloak.

He raises the eyebrows to Harry and sticks his hands into his pockets, standing under the stairs between the sofas and the dinner table, waiting for the green-eyed boy to go to the second floor so he could follow him. However, Harry does not go up. Instead, he keeps turning around while scratching the back of his neck, as if being directionless at his own place was uneventful. Louis had _nothing_ to do with that... He had nothing to do with anything.

"You hungry?" he ends up asking, letting out the air he, without noticing, was holding. Of course Louis was hungry. It was almost 5PM and they had lunch at 11AM. Plus, the boy had had practice earlier and, if there was something Harry learned from his little association with gyms, was that they made you freaking hungry.

Louis nods shyly but nobody moves. Man, this is how you do it. Things were not awkward at all. The only thing left to do was staring at each other with owl-eyes, silently questioning why were they doing that. _Yeah, I could've found another partner,_ the blue-eyed boy would say and then laugh dryly.

"Wanna shower?" he offers, staring at Louis's body. It was still... sweaty.

"'M glad you asked," he says, relieved, and his muscles stop tensioning from being nervous for a moment. "Can I go up stairs?"

"Sure," Harry agrees, following Louis through the stairs clumsily. That was kind of weird actually since it was _his_ apartment. Shouldn't Louis be the one following him? "Uh, I'll get you a towel. Do you need anything else?"

"I have a change of clothes in my bag, but thank you," he says but changes his mind right after. "Actually, I could use a clean shirt. Mine's dirty."

"Sure," the boy says again with no further questions. He opens his drawer and gets one of his shirts, a plain white one, handing it to Louis. He points out to the bathroom down the hall, as if the blue-eyed boy didn't knew where it was already.

When he opens the door to give Louis a clean towel, he stumbles on him taking his shorts off. Louis thanks Harry and shuts the door without showing any sign of embarrassment, probably because taking his uniform off in front of other boys was ordinary to him.

Well, not to Harry it wasn't.

He takes his frustration out on the wraps he makes, slamming vegetables on tortillas as if they were guilty of such bad day. _Why was he so angry?_ The previous canvas about his own feelings start to dissolve inside his conscience and he feels lost. He no longer understood what was making him so unhappy; he did not know what the problem was.

⊹⊹⊹

Louis had this theory that the feeling of doing something you should not be doing was like a magnet for people. As when you decide to eat the birthday sweets before anyone else and someone walks on you in perfect timing. It's like people develop the sense of smell of a shark and sniff your fear of being caught. That is why he had one thing to himself: _when you want to do something you are not supposed to, do it with confidence._ Most times, it ran smoothly. What he does after getting out of the shower, though, can be sniffed from miles away.

He notices change in Harry's bedroom as well, threw on his desk as screaming invitations. Four of them. Two were black and hard-covered. One was of a greenish-brown leather. And the last one of the pile was of a destroyed brown leather with something written on the spine. Louis could not read it from distance. _Diaries._

He tries not to stare at the notebooks but it's almost like his eyes have a life of their own. _Don't be this invasive,_ he thinks to himself when, subtly, he gets up and walks to the desk, backing up right after and sitting on the bed again. _He would not touch them, open them, let alone read them._

Distraction – that was what he needed, so he looks around the room trying to see what else is different, but, holy shit, he can't. To be honest, he did not want to make himself fully aware of where he stood. That was Harry's bedroom and he did not feel worthy of being there, as if his presence attainted the room somehow. If it was before, he wouldn't feel that way. Now, though, all he could think of was how inadequate it was that he was even allowed to be there.

He faces his own feet for several seconds, considering the possibility of joining Harry in the kitchen and helping him with whatever he's doing. That does not feel right, though, being near the boy dressed in his shirt – it was huge on Louis, baggy and long. Their size difference... Louis takes a deep breath. He opens the laptop on Harry's bed even though he has no idea what his password is, typing in the one Harry used years ago, _sunshine_ , and the computer heartlessly announces it is incorrect. So he gives up.

 _Hi, sunshine,_ Harry used to say all the time. _This will be my password from now on so I will never forget it._

Whatever. Doesn't matter. Stop thinking about it, Louis, fuck.

But he can't. It's the apartment, he's sure. It's making him be carried away by a vortex of memories.

They were so clingy. The entire thing was nearly ridiculous and they knew that... but didn't care. _Sweet cheeks. Love. Monkey._ Why the hell did they call each other like that, for God's sake? It was terrible. _Baby cakes_ – why?! According to Google, that meant "the love of your life, your boyfriend/girlfriend/crush".

Why?

Enough is enough. Louis hops off the bed, mad at himself, but can't walk straight past the door. Yes, he stops across the desk. And, yes, he opens the diary with the saying on its spine: _to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts. we only have what we remember – Listener._ It was dated from two years before. That was... interesting.

There is a poem with no rhyme on the first page. Louis never knew Harry liked to write poems.

_you kissed me under stars_

i drowned in your blue eyes

why can't we give each other more 

Shit.

His fingers run uncertain through the page and he fights himself not to turn to the next one. What he was doing was not right. If it were, Harry wouldn't have entered the bedroom and pushed Louis.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" he busts a blood vessel and closes the diary fierily, shooting it to the back of his wardrobe. The act is booming.

Louis can't even speak.

"How long have you been reading things that aren't of your concern?" Harry is yelling. "How long have you been touching my stuff, Louis? Fucking answer me!"

"I wasn't! I just opened it, I didn't know it was your diary, I—Harry, I..." the boy lies and chokes at the same time. If he were standing naked in the middle of the room, he probably wouldn't be feeling nearly as embarrassed as he was now. To have Harry yelling at him like that makes him feel tiny and that's not even a physical thing.

"I knew letting you here was a mistake," he says in a fake calm voice tone, daggering Louis with his eyes. His shoulders itch with an urge to hit the boy in front of him. "That was invasive. Has someone ever told you anything at _all_ about respect?"

"I didn't know!" Louis protests, lying again and, even though he is wrong, he can't allow his pride to be wounded.

"What did you read?" Harry raises his voice again and Louis tells another lie, saying he didn't read a thing, and Harry keeps yelling, each moment closer to the other boy, their chests almost collapsing and Louis knows he's wrong but he screams anyway, turning everything into a mixed mess of loud accusations.

You're selfish.

You hurt too easily.

You have no manners at all.

You should say what you really feel.

You're trying to take advantage of the situation.

You can't understand other people's reasons to do what they do.

Only care about yourself. Isn't listening to me. Shouldn't be here. Don't know where you're going. Don't get hurt by anything. You're an idiot. You're ridiculous. You're pathetic.

You don't deserve help.

Everything was _you, you, you,_ nothing was _I, I, I._ 'I'm sorry' is what Louis should've started with, but Louis wasn't the type to apologize. He had never said he was sorry before and he would not do it now.

Harry tells him to leave. It sounds like an order and maybe it is. He says it loudly and in a raw way so Louis grabs his backpack and throws the borrowed shirt on Harry's face, showing the tattoo right below his collarbones. He is yelling too. Yelling that he doesn't need Harry, that he would be glad to leave – in fact, he was already going to do it anyway!

"I didn't even read shit! You're such a drama queen, Harry. And you know what? Fuck it. I'm taking Savannah."

Their plans of keeping Savannah at Harry's go down the drill. Just like he did the day they were at the soccer field, Louis takes her away as soon as he gets mad.

The way things were going, it was highly likely that they'd finish the assignment, say, never.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Louis remember their first kiss.

Out of all advices Gabby gave Harry, the one he hated the most was: do as your heart says. Most of the time, Harry's heart told him to do stupid things that ended up with regret. He was fully aware of that and, still, he couldn't stop doing so.

Harry ate breakfast with his mom and Cas, then she took the boy to the airport – even though she kept telling him to stay longer. Harry's best friend had mentioned briefly that his parents would be home for the week and, doesn't matter how casual he tried to sound, Harry knew he cared _too much_ to waste the chance of spending some poor quality time with his progenitors – which was basically what they were most part of the time, progenitors and providers, not _parents._

His day went on, getting him more tired each minute and, around noon, the boy was exhausted. There was already too much on his plate: Cas going back home; the Algebra test – why on Earth did he sign up for that freak show? –; the lunch spent over Biology books and cold coffee. There was no room left in his brain for anything else, such as figuring out how to do the assignments by himself. He'd have to talk to Louis, they were way behind schedule.

That's why he runs to Gabby, using this extremely ridiculous term to define his situation with the other boy: situation. _Me and Louis are going through a situation_ is what he says because, for some reason, he doesn't want to tell anyone they had an argument. Or a fight. If he mentioned that, Gabby would ask questions and he wasn't in the mood to answer them.

Okay, all right, the problem wasn't the questions, the problem was the 'I told you so'. Also, Harry was kind of fearing he would finish the story with "and then he yelled at me and took his shirt off. It was kind of hot," 'cause, yeah, he was _that_ lame.

 _Do as your heart says,_ wow. Hearing the right thing was hard sometimes. He knows following his heart was simply listening to this unreasonable part of his brain. Yet, this beat was the only one that could tune Harry into Louis.

He looks for him around school, finally finding the boy standing in a hallway with his friends. They're all leaned on purple lockers, sharing a big bag of Doritos and messing with people that walk past them. Harry has no time for second guessing himself, so he walks towards the group and says:

"Louis, can I speak to you?" as if it suddenly okay for gazelles to enter the lion's territory.

All the boys look at him from head to toe, scanning his confident-but-not-enough figure asking to speak to Louis. Harry feels like Chad is going to jump on his throat when Louis nods, grabs a handful of Doritos and walks away from his friends.

They don't get enough distance from Louis'... friends. Actually, they don't move away nearly as much as they should have and Louis just stands there sticking snacks in his mouth and looking like a little scared Bambi. It seems like he's afraid Harry will lose his temper and start another fight, showing the entire soccer team they were stuck in a stress bubble... together.

Harry inhales deeply like five hundred times and, while he does that, he can't stop running his thumb across his lips nervously. He looks at Louis many times, their green and blue eyes screaming at each other. _Please, be careful,_ Louis thinks.

Harry finally starts to understand vertigo. He's so dizzy he can't think of his apologies anymore. What once were simple words now seem like Math talk or anything else he did not know how to put into words. He gets even more nervous and feels like going back to the library and eating Biology books if he had to. Doing everything by himself seems like a plausible thing to do again, but only on the surface. Deep down he knew he needed help and, when Louis' friends start hissing and asking each other what the fuck is going on, making the older boy press his eyelids together as if he was before a train wreck about to happen, Harry knows he has to speak.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," he says, closing his eyes involuntarily and not allowing himself to stop halfway through. "I was too hot-blooded about the whole thing with the diaries. I believe you. I mean, if you said you didn't read them, then I believe you..."

That makes Louis feel sick on his stomach because he had lied. He did read something and knew exactly what that poem was about.

"I need help with the assignment, so, if that's fine by you, we can meet and finish things. It can be in the library...you know—if that's better."

Louis nods and smiles lightly. Next, he pets Harry quickly on the shoulder and walks back to his friends. Harry feels relieved, as if he had just took the world off his back. Until, of course, Louis ruins everything again in a matter of seconds.

The blue-eyed boy tried not to be rude. In fact, he avoided even opening his mouth so he wouldn't say the wrong thing since he felt like it was mandatory to act like his friends around them. He holds it back in front of Harry but, as soon as he starts walking away, Louis' self-acting side decides to speak.

"We're doing an assignment together," Louis explains. "Apparently that's all it takes for people to think they're friends with you nowadays."

Harry swallows hard, trying to ignore the new familiar weight that sits on his shoulder. He guesses it is what it is. Shame on him for keeping a tiny sparkle of hope lit up – he should have accepted ages ago that the Louis he used to know was gone for good. It did not matter how much time they spent together or how much brighter the perspective for the days ahead of them seemed to get, there was no Haz-and-Lou anymore nor there would ever be again.

They were Harry and Louis – just as solid and indelible as that. Harry sits in the library trying not to think of the past and, when Louis gets away from his friends, he does the same. Trying not to think, though, only makes things more real. Their memories are certainly stronger than their power to avoid them, so they hit the boys until it aches. Pain echoes in Louis because he is sorry he cannot stop being an asshole and because he cannot say he is sorry. In Harry because he is also sorry; sorry things between them would not be good again; sorry there is a part of him who still wants Louis – the one he knew... the one who knew him.

They met on a hot, damp September day. Harry was fifteen and Louis was sixteen. Going to the so-called Welcoming Day was a shot in the dark for both of them and, unlike it was written on the neon card invitation they had gotten, Nuthatches veterans were anything but receptive. Until 2PM, around the time they met each other, Harry still had not talked to anyone and Louis found himself in the middle of an exchange of pessimist expectations between a group of eight nagging newbies.

Louis was taking a piss in hallway D's bathroom when Harry stepped in, trying to stay as far as possible from the boy with blue eyes, jeans folded at the ankles and white Vans, which wasn't exactly possible. There were only three urinals in the stuffy room and all of them were too close and devoid of partitions. To make matters worse, Harry did the one thing you're not supposed to do in male restrooms: he glanced side-downwards.

The awkwardness of his action hit him in a split second because, oh, God, it looked so much like he was checking out the stranger's dick. He wasn't, though! He was looking at his bruised hand.

When the blue-eyed boy started laughing, Harry made the biggest effort of his life to stop peeing and get the hell out of there, but his bladder simply wasn't having it. Everything felt chaotically embarrassing, really, and it was odd that the world around them wasn't humming along with Harry's thoughts.

Louis was laughing because his peripheral vision was presenting him with the quirkiest image of someone peeing ever. He had never, in his entire life, seen a boy so nervous. When Lou looked at him right in the eyes, then, it's when things got even more delightful. The boy blushed madly, as if Louis didn't know he glanced at his hands, not his parts.

Back then, his hair was even longer and curly bangs fell over his forehead and the sides of his face. His green eyes were always lit up, and, around them, the eyelids had a distinctive volume, as if the boy were always sleepy. Overall, he looked like a nice person, but what really convinced Louis of such was the fact that, when he laughed, his eyes squinted and dimples popped up his cheeks. Louis really trusted people with dimples – especially if they were that cute.

"Do you think the lack of partitions is also part of how things work around this school?" was the first thing Louis said. He did not trust Nuthatches methods – his father was crazy if he thought some _guruness_ of sorts would stop him from messing around. Unlike Harry, who had an artist for a mom who weirdly encouraged him to study at Hatches for Nuts, Louis had brought many suspicions to the new environment.

"Hopefully the other bathrooms have it different," Harry said. "Your pee splashed on my jeans."

He knew that as an awful thing to say to someone he barely even knew but Louis didn't seem to mind. Being inside a bathroom was the only perfect context to talk about pee they would ever get.

"I'm glad I stood next to you at the urinals... if I had to get someone's pee splashed on me, I'd much rather have your pee than his pee," Louis said and pointed to a skinny boy standing at the patio.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Have a few million years to spare? Telling you what _isn't_ wrong with him would take us less time."

He and Harry kept talking in the bathroom for a little longer before going back outside and waiting for the day to end.

They got along awesomely well but none of them really expected to become friends. In the following week, they barely even thought about each other, even though out of all people they had met, one another seemed like the best possible people to befriend. They did meet again, though, right on the actual first day of school. They had Algebra, Philosophy, Astronomy and Literature together and, that year, Harry almost failed Algebra for spending more time talking to Lou (or thinking of him) than actually paying attention to the classes. 20% of the time he touched his notebooks was to write Louis' name on the corners of the pages.

They both started the year as misfits and ended it the same way, even though, for Louis, it had always been optional. He really did not seem to like the people around him, but Harry was sure that was a consequence of his grudge against New York. People never really gave a care in the world for Harry and his weirdness, but they were always trying to get close to Louis. The boy was, indeed, magnetic – he made the right jokes, was dauntless, loud, sassy and despite his short temper and the acid sense of humor, he could be sweet, caring and even a bit needy in a completely adorable and reveling way. Louis was a good friend. At least to Harry, who truly knew him, he could go from the hyperactive carefree Louis to a very down-to-earth and good listener boy in the blink of an eye.

They both were new in town. Harry'd moved in from Seattle with his family and Louis from Ohio to _try_ having one. His mother and father, divorced for a few years then, decided to give their marriage another shot, so they moved into Mr. Mitchell's ridiculously big apartment and tried playing the Happy Family game for a few months.

Harry and Louis promised themselves and one another that they wouldn't let the experience of living somewhere different turn against them, which means they'd kill the giants in their way to reach the top of the mountain, make new friends, have fun and, just maybe, fully enjoy High School. All of that lost importance in front of the only thing that really mattered to the boys, though: each other.

Louis ended up making some friends, even though he already had all he needed, and Harry met Gabby, who took him to the world of Josh, Bear, Julian, Colleen and the others. In the turn of an hourglass, their New Yorker galaxies started being filled up and, still, Louis was the center of everything for Harry, just like Harry was the center of everything for Louis. They were these big sun and moon coexisting complementarily, opposites who, at the same time, had lots in common – including the capacity to brighten up the world, make things for each other less dull, more worth it.

It did not just happen. Every day presented, at some point, the choice of departure. They could've just existed in the same sky if they wanted to, but the boys wanted to be in the same gap as well. Harry would have friends and absolutely love Gabby but, at the end of the day, Louis was the only one who could feel like home. It felt like an arrangement of other lives.

That scared the living daylights out of Louis, which was good as well as bad. It scared him because he soon understood that what he felt for Harry was more than empathy, love and complicity. It scared him because he often caught himself thinking things like _I'm in love with him_ , and he had never been in love with anybody before, let alone a boy. He was not gay and he certainly did not want to be, but how come not be when his first thought of every single morning was Harry?

Being gay felt weird. His body hated it. As endearing as thinking of Harry was, at night his chest would still tighten and he'd feel guilty, he'd feel dirty, he'd cry himself to sleep. The worst part was that he couldn't get himself to talk about it. There were days he was so on the verge of becoming a walking disaster that he'd whisper to Target cashiers he liked boys or turn up the music in his bedroom and scream at the top of his lungs he was gay and he'd swear to God that if he had to exhaust his mind once more talking about girls and boobs and Playboys with one more classmate, he'd do something silly.

Being gay was messy. Although he wanted to tell Harry about it, he didn't and he had to be so careful every single day to keep it all inside him and not let his messiness resonate beyond the borders of his own self. He had to be careful because he didn't want to hurt Harry. Back then, solicitude existed between them in a way that seemed to have disappeared in time.

 _Being me is okay_ , he'd tell himself every time he realized he was watching Harry's rosy lips, wishing to kiss them 'til they turned blood red.

His desire for the boy grew stronger each day, together with fondness and hopes Harry was the happiest person on Earth. He had never felt anything like that, not for any of the girls he had ever been with nor for any of his friends. His first move happened in an extraordinary night – if it ended up being perceived as such because of what it initially was or because of what it became, though, he would never be able to define. He and all his Astronomy classmates were camping in the soccer field – which would soon become Louis' little redoubt of peace – waiting for a total eclipse.

Louis had already seen eclipses before, but to wait was different from to expect, thus being there was somewhat eventful. Mrs. Rodriguez, by far Louis' favorite teacher, had let them put records on while they ate Oreos and told ghost stories. The night felt special for being a rare occasion where school turned out to be fun. Little did he know that eclipse had something much bigger in storage for them.

Those honeymoon promises of sorts didn't dare to rush into revealing themselves to the boy. Everything was happening in a flux that, despite being all about Louis, was also completely independent of him. The events of that night had been lurking in for an awful lot of time and were so strong they would not give the boy space to lie to himself and become a living obstacle that would stop destiny from jumping graciously on him and Harry.

The two boys were sharing a sleeping pad, leaned on their elbows while staring at the sky. A Japanese song was playing in the background, exotic and relaxing to those particular ears. The boy could not pay attention to the perfect alignment of the Sun with the Moon because, while the celestial bodies kissed, Louis looked at Harry's partially illuminated face and thought of kissing him, too. He purposely slid one hand onto Harry's, hoping the boy wouldn't ask any questions, which he didn't – his only response to Louis' gesture was skittering his thumb across the back of the other boy's hesitant hand.

His emotions were being thrown at him as gently as the basketball that hit his face that one time in Gym class, turning his guts into a warm mess. He would like to pause the sensation of nausea and the tingling at the back of his neck but he couldn't. The simple thought of touching Harry's lips frightened him, as if kissing him was attesting to the death of what they used to be: friends. He wanted to kiss Harry so, so bad, but he knew doing so could change things forever. What he did not know was if he was ready for that.

There's never the right moment for human brains, though, is there? That's why the Universe carries on anyway.

"You're up?" Harry whispered to the vacuum, hoping to get an answer from Louis.

"Yes," he whispered back.

"I can't sleep."

"Me neither."

"We should do something."

Mrs. Rodriguez had taught them about Dyson spheres, which were, basically, structures that encompassed a star and captured all or most part of its power output. While Lou fought the will of lying closer to Harry, he concluded he was the star, especially with all of that burning inside of him. He was a body composed of different things, contradictory feelings, and his center – the stomach – was heated and pressured. Harry was the sphere. He was sucking all of Louis' energy and still not destroying him.

"Wanna go for a walk?" Louis asked because why not? He heard Harry getting up clumsily.

"Let's go to the bleachers."

"And that's it?" he grimaced.

"Yes. It's not possible to go anywhere else."

"We can go inside the school."

"Sure, if I was nuts," Harry protested, voice low. "Dark and silent hallways in the middle of the night? Pass."

"All right, wimpy. Off to the bleachers we go, then."

"I wish you'd stop acting like Spider-Man for a change."

"No, you don't."

Harry laughed, nodding. He sat on one of the steps while Lou stood in front of him, skidding the sole of his sneakers on the flat wood, wet by dew.

"I'm not so sure about sleeping. I've heard some dudes are going to stay up and rub toothpaste on sleeping people's faces," Lou said.

"'S not so bad."

"I've got some dignity, Harold."

"We can stay up, if you want."

They stayed in silence for a while. Harry looked at Louis and smiled for no reason. Louis smiled back and held his breath while his chest felt tinier by the minute.

"I've had one too many Oreos," Harry said. "My tongue tastes like chocolate. And is probably brown, too."

"Let me see," Louis smiled.

Harry stuck his tongue out at the same time he giggled, shoulders rhythmically going up and down while he laughed silently. Impulsively, Louis leaned in and licked Harry's tongue, letting out a nervous, uncertain whiff on those rosy lips. He did not _kiss_ Harry; he only licked his tongue while their blue and green irises gazed into one another. They seemed scared. Lou tasted chocolate and the saliva of a curly, adorable boy, and he loved every single flavor of Harry's mouth. It would soon be Louis', too. Isn't something yours if it appears in your daydreams and wholesome memories and lonesome nights?

Louis wouldn't mind kissing Harry to the point he'd forget what his own inside tasted like before.

"Lou, what the freak did you just do?" Harry asked. His eyes were wide and he was touching one corner of his mouth.

His voice brought Louis back.

"Oh, my God," Lou suddenly said, abruptly moving away from Harry and almost slipping on the floor.

"Louis, I...—"

"Harry, I'm really sorry, I don't know what got into me, I...—"

"Hey, it's alright," Harry said but Louis did not hear him, too committed to his own unfounded apologies to pay attention to anything else.

"It's just that I've been thinking about this for so long and things seemed so favorable now... I was such a... I don't know what...—" he nervously mumbled.

" _Louis,_ " Harry said firmly, silencing him and pulling him closer by the end of his hoodie. "It's all good, yeah? Do you want to...?"

"I _do._ "

Harry swallowed his own nervousness away and tapped one of his knees lightly as an invitation for Louis to sit there if he wanted, which he did. His breath got even more brokenly as he felt Harry's arms hugging his small waist. He closed his eyes for a bit.

"This is all too new for me. I don't know what to do," he confessed.

The green-eyed boy nodded and touched Louis' cheek with his lips, kissing there gently.

He ignored the heart palpitation that made him feel like he was not able to go on and slipped his mouth down to Louis'. The older boy was breathing heavily and feeling dizzy, but still he took one of his hands to the side of Harry's face and held it, rubbing a thumb on Harry's inner lip.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked softly, mouth against Louis' finger. "Do you want to push me or hug me?"

He was being as careful as he could, since he did not want Louis to regret that and end up hating himself _and_ Harry, after all, he wasn't about to kiss a girl like the usual.

"Hug you," Louis answered.

"Good," Harry nodded again and slowly parted his lips open while Lou followed his lead. They did not kiss properly, not at first, they just touched their tongues and then moved them to each other's lips, tasting every inch of something so small. When they finally fit their mouths together, it was like two Lego pieces made to be together.

Their first and only kisses were intense, sweet and completely urgent, every lip movement orchestrated as if to melt Haz and Lou's together. They stopped for a few seconds, looking each other in the eyes and smiling. Making jokes was out of the table, though. In a way, that moment was too solemn for that.

Louis thought that the kiss was supposed to cease his desire for kissing but the more he felt Harry's lips on his, the more he wanted to feel them. Suddenly, the position of their bodies did not seem enough anymore, so the boy turned his, chest now facing Harry's, and his legs worked around the green-eyed boy's waist.

Harry holding him by his back and leaning forward, making Louis giggle and hold his neck tighter so he wouldn't fall, was still one of Lou's happiest memories.

There were many things they wanted to ask each other, but they never really got the chance of doing so or repeating the experience because, a week later, Louis decided he was too coward to face all the things his kisses with Harry awoken in him – feelings that already existed, but he kept putting to sleep. He started wanting Harry so much, as though as the things they could possibly have with each other, that he did not feel able to walk out from zero point. Instead, he just gave a million steps backs in dealing with bravery. If one day he was completely impulsive, biting Harry's lips and sticking his fingers through his curls, the other he could not even say a word to his friend – or whatever he was, now.

Getting in the team came at the right time, since that gave him a plausible excuse to become a douchebag. He was now a soccer player hanging out with the so-called cool kids – fixed table in the cafeteria, lots of chicks chasing after him and no time at all to be gay and try to unravel his own mind. So he burned bridges. He did it without any further ado, which was honestly the worst thing he had ever done to someone. He should've known better that people are more than a throwaway anything. You can't just cut them out of your life like they don't even deserve an explanation.

At first, doing what he did made him the most miserable human on Earth, but the more he changed, the easier he could pretend he didn't care. Being away from Harry was sparing himself of having to get out of his comfort zone and deal with situations he was not strong enough to deal with, like being in love with somebody.

Harry thinks about the past enough to get completely enraged. Few hours later, he has sex with Axel viciously, unloading all his anger in the act, and that's when, intentionally, the boy becomes his escape valve.

Now things could not get any worse.

Right?


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds out kissing boys wasn't an one time thing for Louis.

"Look at him," Axel says, laughing, and nudges Gabby on the shoulder. "He looks like a rock star in the making."

He took Harry and their friends to a frat party and, now, they were all in a crowded room listening to Machu Picchu by the Strokes. He could see Harry from a distance, with messy hair and wearing a black and white striped shirt, laughing and dancing completely wasted.

Gabby was one step away from doing the same.

"He knows no boundaries when it comes to beer with tequila," she says and stumbles to the side, giggling.

"Seems like neither do you," Axel smiles.

"Guilty," she raises her hands in rendition. "Need to go to the bathroom," she lies and goes looking for Bear.

Guilty again.

She was tired of going in circles. The girl have wanted to kiss Bear for ages and, as soon as she spots him having a smoke outside the house, that's what she does. Gabby puts away the cigarette and throws it out, hugging his neck – well, more like using it as a support. Bear gets so surprised it takes a while for him to kiss back.

Something about his kiss had changed. It was not that good anymore. Still, she stays there. It's probably not worth it, but the girl's not thinking straight. The four bottles of Desperados took her away from the notion she should respect Colleen. To Gabby, in that moment, only her and Bear existed, and that's why letting him hug her skinny body feels easy.

"This," she says, breathing weakly as they put some distance between their lips, "was the last time."

Lame. God, how could she be so lame?

"You always say that," Bear opens a crooked smile, leaning into the wall and lighting up another cigarette.

"Yeah. This is the one I really mean it."

"I miss you, Gabriela," the man says casually, raising his eyebrows like a proper underdog.

"Not trying to weep over here, but you also miss Colleen."

He stays in silence.

"I knew it," she rolls her eyes. "It's better this way."

"Is it?" he laughs.

"Yeah. It would be shit if you were completely available for me, you know? Because this way we'd be boyfriend and girlfriend again. God forbid that."

"Little hostile princess," Bear says and shrugs. He runs his fingers through his beard and kisses Gabby again, making it quick so he does not seem like the most needy guy in that party. If she wasn't giving in, he would absolutely not show his vulnerable side.

Men's ego, right? So easily wounded.

"Are you staying here?" he asks while walking away.

"I'd rather," she answers bitterly, feeling twice more sober. Why put herself in those situations if all there was left, at the end, was a huge amount of anger?

Kissing Bear... _Man._

Why did she think that would be a good idea again?

⊹⊹⊹

Harry gets a text message from Axel: _are you lost?_ He wouldn't classify being in a complete unknown room of the house as being lost, but he didn't know where exactly to go either. How did he even get there? Last time he checked he was looking for a bathroom.

 _N o! Makign firnds_ , he types, thanking autocorrector for sorting that out. No, he was not lost, he was making friends, which was completely odd, since Celeste and Jaden were from school and Harry did not make friends _from_ or _in_ school. He had never seem them before and felt like hiding under a table when Celeste popped in front of him and asked if he was a senior at Nuthatches, grabbing his shoulders.

"Okay then, Celeste!" the other stranger exclaims, shambling, and reaches out his hand. "I remember you. I think we took some classes together in sophomore year."

"I don't remember you," Harry answers, giggly and drunk, and shakes his hand.

"I'm Jaden. We are graduating together, innit?"

"Yeah, apparently so."

The girl, Celeste, waves at them repeatedly, eagle eyeing them. She had big eyelashes and a beautiful shade of milky-chocolate skin, exactly like Jaden's.

She takes the lead and makes room among college kids, heading up stairs. There were many locked-up bedrooms, and in the halls it was possible to hear boisterous moaning stuffed by the doors, which made them laugh.

"Sounds like they're killing a goat inside this one," Harry points to one of the white doors with golden knobs, biting his inner lip while he chuckles.

"Definitely a penetrating sound," Jaden laughs.

They find an empty room with futons, leopard-printed sofas and a huge billiard table. That is where they stay. Harry throws himself on one of the seats, watching his world spin 360º. The sensation is pleasant and he wets his lips lazily, eyes closed.

"Harry, I kind of have to tell you something," the boy hears Celeste's voice getting closer and opens one of his eyes, watching her sit by his side on the futon. "Yeah, yeah, I know your name, don't look at me like that," she laughs. "Well, I kind of went on a date with your ex-boyfriend last week."

"What?" he arches one eyebrow, lifting part of his body. Rupert... His head had been so crowded over the past weeks that he didn't even had time to worry about anything ex-boyfriend related. He waited for the pain of knowing Rupert was seeing other people apart from Nico, but it never came, only a surprised thump in his chest. "Why?"

"I don't know. He was sort of freaking out because of Nico, saying he didn't want him anymore because he was too chubby, and then we went out so he would feel better, I guess. Our friends insisted."

"Please," Harry laughs. "Why would being chubby make anyone less cute? He _knows_ he's attractive. His body is still the same from when I met him and, trust me, he has no problems at all with it. Rupert likes to fish for compliments."

"Yeah, I guess... I'm sorry," she sounds sincere.

"Celeste, why are you apologizing?" Jaden laughs. "You and Harry have just met."

"Yeah," Harry laughs along. "Chill out, you owe me nothing. I'm just surprised he's seeing girls now."

"I think that was only a brief moment of delusion with men," she shrugs. "He looked like he hated every minute of the date, to be honest. Apparently he and Nico are giving a break."

"Nope, saw them together yesterday," Harry says. "Do you guys take classes together?"

"No, different grades. I take Philosophy with your sister, though, and, speaking of whom, I went bowling yesterday and ran into her."

"She's a bowling junkie," he smiles. "Did she do her lame victory dance?"

"Yes, she and Louis Tomlinson!" Celeste laughs. "She was there with the soccer team."

Harry swallows dryly. Of course he had to come to freaking light in a random conversation to disturb the peace. Louis managed to be annoying even in his absence.

"She has a boyfriend," he says defensively.

"Does she?" Celeste raises her eyebrows. "Weird. They seemed so close."

"Next time you see Rupert, tell him my new boyfriend looks like a greek god," Harry smiles, avoiding the _other_ subject.

"Only if that's true, dude."

"Let's go downstairs and I'll show you."

⊹⊹⊹

While Celeste talks with Axel, Harry walks outside, smiling reassuringly before the inquiring expression on the dark-haired man's face. He was left alone with two people he barely knew, but he'd survive.

The green-eyed boy calls his sister, disabled of warning her about anything at all, even when he hears her slurry-wasted voice. He was pretty drunk himself, after all. In fact, his drunkenness was even coming up with a very reasonable plan. At least it seemed like such right there, right in that moment. Sober, he would hate himself for even thinking of doing what he was about to, but he wasn't, so to hell with his dignity.

"Tell me where Louis is," he shoots, sparing greetings. "I know you know."

"Are you angry at me?" Char asks. "Don't be. I met him yesterday and didn't even get the chance to tell you!"

"We can talk about that later, Charlotte. Where is he?"

"Why do you...?"

" _Where_ the hell is he, Charlotte?" Harry loses his temper, cutting his sister off.

"Whoa, dude! Trailer Park, it's what I've heard."

"Okay," he says and hangs up, running back to the living room.

He would confront Louis. He needed to do that once and for all, put an endpoint to everything they ever had, from the moment they met to that very one. He would not be the stupid one again. Harry was _not_ there to be used, let alone be Louis' escape valve in a city he used to hate (Harry did not even know if he liked it now), satisfy his homo curiosity, get his grades up or whatever. He was tired. Tired of being taken for the little white ship who couldn't stand up for itself, tired of looking like something he was not.

Since it was already too late to fake his own death, he would face their trouble with the little self-respect still available. He needed to tell Louis what he thought, put him wise to what was going on in the troubled universe the two of them shared. Everything else was irrelevant or simply a consequence of their miffs.

He takes Axel away from Jaden and Celeste, waving at them two and saying they'd meet again at school, which sounds like an utterly strange thing for him to say. Did he have new friends? If they weren't two arseholes, Harry hoped so. It would be cool being able to smile to someone besides his family and Gabby at the graduation ceremony.

"I'll take off to grab a burger."

"Right now?" Axel asks, arching an eyebrow curiously.

"Yeah," Harry spreads his lips in a smile. "Trailer Park. I can walk there."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Ax, it's a five-minute walk."

"This late at night. I'm coming with."

"You don't have to."

"Well, I want to. Is that okay?" the dark-haired boy says and puts one hand on the small of Harry's back, pushing him gently towards the exit. He waves goodbye to a few people before they actually leave and, for some reason, that's electrifying to the younger boy, to know that Axel had a life that worked just fine without Harry, as if, in a way, he'd have to fight for Axel's attention every once in a while.

Thinking of that makes him want to lock himself with Axel in one of the bedrooms, or maybe it was just the beer.

They silently walk through the wet grass, the air colder than what they'd expected, feeling the fresh smell in the air. It had probably rained and no one noticed. They don't account for what they're going to do to anyone; on the contraire, they leave like a couple, only having to tell each other where they're heading to.

"I feel like I barely saw you today," Axel says, rushing a few steps and placing his hips on Harry's back. He bites his shoulder covered by the cotton shirt.

"That's 'cause you didn't," the boy giggles sheepishly, flustered by the sudden gesture.

"You're so drunk," he smiles, now walking side to side with Harry, who smiles back and lowers his head. Axel hugs his shoulders. "Maybe I can get wasted too... By drinking white wine from your belly button."

"I'm afraid there's only beer at your place, boo."

"Beer it is then, beautiful. Right after you take care of whatever you have to take care of. Who are you meeting?"

Harry's green eyes widen in Axel's direction, who simply laughs, waiting for a response. As much as Harry wanted to get to Trailer Park and pretend he occasionally ran into Louis, he would not be able to lie, so he stays in silence.

"There was a bunch of food at the party, wasn't there?"

Axel nods.

"I've got to sort some things out with this dude from school. Just... take this off my chest already."

"Is it one of the boys who pick on you?" Axel frowns before how he sounds like a dad. Harry nods back.

Now that the cards were put on the table and Harry acknowledged he was actually going to have a conversation with Louis, whether he felt brave enough to do it or not, the walk ends in the blink of an eye. They enter the small bar with green walls, ornaments all over them, and it is not that hard to see Louis. Harry sees him before the opposite happens, and Axel sits at one of the tables, relaxing his body on the chair with a delighted grimace on his face.

There's blues playing and Harry's stomach starts to bubble almost in sync with the music. He feels as if he's about to throw up, his mouth salivating uncontrollably.

"Uh, Harry," Axel suddenly moves on his chair, looking uncomfortable, his eyes flying from the balcony to the boy's face. "I need to tell you something."

"Not now," he mumbles and runs to the restroom, holding tight to the borders of the sink and waiting for the puke that does not come until Louis opens the door, his face revealing how funny that situation was for him. The simple vision of the boy walking inside the same space as Harry, not appearing to be even slightly surprised by what he sees, is enough for Harry's stomach to tie the ultimate knot.

"In the sink, really?" Louis asks and crosses his arms over the chest, leaning into a wall and watching Harry's attempts of talking. He is stopped by all the liquid coming out of his mouth over and over again. "You know what, Harry, sometimes you look like a giant baby to me. Seriously. I just find your eyes extremely bright and your gestures very, very innocent."

Harry glances at the boy, taking a deep breath while more puke does not come. Louis' voice was also slurry, and Harry wonders how many drinks had he already had.

"My suspects big babies are too weak for alcohol are correct."

"I'm not a big baby," Harry mutters while washing his mouth, aware that the gesture was useless. In a few minutes he'd be throwing up again, until there wasn't anything left to come out of him and he dried out like a stone.

"You look like one," Louis shrugs. "Except for when you doesn't."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Well," Louis ignores Harry's ironic input with by lifting his eyebrows and pressing his lips together. "Sometimes you look like a cocky motherfucker ready to behave poorly. When you're serious or concentrated or chewing gum, for example. But, most times, the baby-version reigns."

 _Cocky motherfucker ready to behave poorly_ , Harry's mind repeats.

_It's all right. I'm okay._

"Don't I ever look like a normal person?" he says before a yellowish foam goes up his throat. "Shit."

"This is getting rather disgusting," Louis takes a deep breath and a man knocks on the door, thus he puts his face outside and apologizes. "My friend is not feeling so good. I hope you're not having an emergency. Go to the ladies bathroom. It's empty, no one will notice," he opens a cordially smile and locks the door.

"You don't get to lock us in a bathroom."

"You don't get a say on this. Today you're no good, right? Two beers and you're throwing your organs up."

"Wow, you sound so sure. Were you there with me?"

"Bet I was," Louis lifts an eyebrow smugly, hoping Harry was good at reading between the lines. "So, how many did you have?"

"I _can_ handle more than two beers, Louis," Harry rolls his eyes, mouth washing again and feeling like an idiot for defending himself before that.

"Of course you do, doll," he scoffs. "Wanna have one with me?"

"I'm kind of busy throwing up my soul right now, but thanks for the offer."

"Yeah, that's enough, Harry," the boy comes closer and lifts the younger boy's face by the chin, washing it with no delicacy whatsoever and then leaning him onto the sink. He backs up again. "Wearing your pants like me, now?"

He points at Harry's uncommonly blue jeans, folded by the ankles and followed by brown chelsea boots. Harry looks at Louis as if he was the most pathetic human being to ever exist.

"My boyfriend wears it like that."

They both fall silent.

Harry does not know why he said 'boyfriend'.

Axel was _not_ his boyfriend.

"Your boyfriend," Louis snickers, closing his eyes for a moment. "I've got a funny story about him to tell."

"You don't even know him," Harry rebuts, feeling something go up his chest – not puke, this time, but a ton of anger.

"I think I actually do. He's pursuing an Engineering diploma, NYU, right? His frat house throw some kick-ass parties."

Harry inhales deeply, clenching his teeth. Telling people he was from a frat house was sort of a pick-up line for Axel.

Oh, no. 

"He's also a good kisser," Louis adds.

The green eyes start tearing up and Harry cannot stop it. The boy bites his inner lip, trying to keep from crying and, surprisingly, the gesture works, and he mentally thanks the Universe. Last thing he needed was Louis to see him crying once more.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes I do, Harry, for fuck's sake," Louis raises his voice, as if he had reasons to be mad and not Harry. "If you don't believe me, ask him. Or I could just show you his number on my phone."

Harry suddenly walks away from the sink, impulsively pushing Louis' chest, who stumbles back.

"Did you fucking kiss him? You're not even gay! You've been running from that for years and giving me a fucking hard time with your stupid little squad because of my sexual orientation and now you tell me you _kissed_ Axel?"

"Just last week, to be clear."

"Last week?" Harry yells, pushing Louis' chest again, who just rolls his eyes and mutters a curse. When Harry raises his hands to push the other boy again, Louis grabs them and puts them down to Harry's side. His forehead can barely reach Harry's nose, which makes him feel completely ridiculous, even more when Harry lets out a heavy breath and it litters Louis' hair like he's some sort of toy. 

He slowly looks up until his eyes meet Harry's, seeming to forget for a moment what all of that was about. They both make mention to say something, but stay quiet. Louis takes two steps back, folding his arms on his chest again.

"I did not know he was your little _boyfriend._ I guess I had this vague memory of seeing you two together, but I wasn't sure. If I knew he was serious with someone I would've never... hooked up with him... Because I've got some dignity."

"He's not," Harry finally gives up, rolling his eyes. "We're just seeing each other. Doing what bunnies do," he smiles and Louis barks a short-lived laugh. "He's a friend."

Humor dies fast.

Louis swallows hard and nods.

"Are you... you know, in love with him?"

"None of your business," he grimaces.

"Right," Louis shakes his head energetically. "Right, it really isn't."

"I'm so disappointed. I can't believe that... All this time I thought you... This is so... _God, Louis._ "

"I was _drunk,_ Styles. Shit happens."

"Of course you were, _doll,_ " Harry laughs bitterly.

Now the boy just feels boneless. He wants to crawl up his bed and blank out. All this time he thought Louis was running away from homosexuality, that maybe he made a mistake, but it wasn't that, he was just running away from Harry. That was... hurtful. A big hit. Now there were no more options but moving on and, God, that sucked. That wiped out a bunch of feelings that were not even supposed to exist anymore. Game over for the sparks, for them. Men were interesting to Louis, Harry wasn't. And did he even _want_ to be? The entire time he was convinced he was walking away from their situation, that Louis meant less to him each day. He never realized that, in fact, he was heading to an irrefutable truth: he would never be able to run away from something he couldn't forget.

That small hope Stephen King talked about in _Joyland._ That really fucked Harry up. That really killed him. At least for that moment, it did.

"Whatever," he breaks the silence. "I came here because of you. To say I don't want you hanging out with my sister and that I'm going to do the assignments by myself. I heard what you said about me in the hallway today and, as much as I don't wanna play the drama queen, I'm not a goddamn robot."

"I..." Louis starts a sentence even though he does not know where it could possibly go. Harry was not supposed to hear that.

"I have feelings, Louis, whether you care about them or not. I may not know who you are anymore, but the things you say about me would hurt even coming from a stranger. This is over. There's no you and me working together in any way and not because I'm not capable of giving you chances, Louis, but because you're not capable of giving me one. A sincere chance, I mean."

"You're wrong."

"Oh, save it. Honestly. Since the week after our Astronomy camp, you've been underestimating me and overestimating yourself. I get it that you made new friends and all this nonsense shit, but people deserve an explanation, especially when they care about each other."

Now he's crying.

Well, fuck that, too.

"I don't know if I can reach any part of my old friend in this new hollow version of you, but you really hurt me, man. Then and now. I'm being honest because I'm drunk, yes, and I really hope you can do that someday."

"I can be honest... Let me explain."

"No, not to me, Louis. I'm so fed up with you I don't even want to hear any of your bullshit anymore. But grow some balls, man, and be honest with yourself."

"I am," he lies barely audibly.

"Sure. Next time you see me you'll tell yourself we were never here and you never told me you kiss dudes, which makes you an hypocrite, liar and, flashing news, huge jerk, but I'll just ignore that since I have nothing to do with the way you live your life. As for _our_ stuff, Louis, I need to say that you're the most coward person I have ever been with."

"Can you listen to me for a second?"

"No," Harry says, walking towards the door. "Fuck you very much, Louis. Don't ever talk to me again and this time I really mean it. Not even to thank me for your good grades, you selfish bastard."

Half of him was in pieces, now it was time to tatter the other one. He pushes the door open violently, nearly punching it, and walks to the table Axel got, feeling like destroying every single inch of that ridiculous place they were at – unfortunately, he used to like Trailer Park, but it had just became a stronghold for all the bad things he kept trying to avoid.

Over the years, Harry told himself so many stories. Stupid stories that, most times, he had to push down his own throat, so little convincing they were. Stories about how him and Louis were not even _that_ close, at the end of the day, and how about moving on from their friendship would be the easiest thing ever, even though it represented 50% of all true friendships he had made in town until then. Stories about how much better it is to be alone than to take risks when it comes to people, since most of them would just end up being the same old disappointment.

And, of course, he didn't stop there. There was this story about how he could be all no-strings-attached with Axel, denying the fact that even the way someone rides you is a form of attachment – and not only literally. He thought he had it all under control but there he was, strangely hurt by Axel had kissed Louis and God knows how many more other boys even though they were _together,_ kissing in public, holding hands, going out on dates, doing it in cars, on beds, over tables. He was feeling like not enough – not for Louis, not for Rupert, not for Axel. A dead weight made of kindness, altruism, care and comprehension that were never rewarded.

Sometimes the stories you tell yourself are not silver linings; they are just lies you live by for being too scared of the truth. It doesn't matter how good you are at tricking yourself, though. You may run fast, but eventually reality comes and gets you.

Face it while it still seems like a problem for the present you; the one who's not deluded by lame attempts of fairy tailing trouble. Sugarcoating are for small fucking problems. Sugarcoating are not for stuff that can leave you broken.

Harry regrets the little lies. Perhaps the truth wouldn't be so scary if he had spent energy on trying to be more courageous instead of making up stories.

"We're leaving," he says, sounding angry and disappointed.

"I ordered food," Axel replies carefully.

"Great," he says, throwing a 20 dollar bill on the table. "Is it enough? _We're leaving._ "

The dark-haired boy does not say a word until they are out of the lounge. As much as he wants to talk about the whole Louis thing and get this over with, Harry does not stop stomping.

"Harry, fuck," Axel nags, pulling him by the hand. "Can you look at me?"

They were in the middle of a 7th Avenue sidewalk.

"Did you hook up with him, yes or no?"

Axel stays in silence for a bit.

"Yes. I was going to tell you this when I recognized him there, but you stormed off to the bathroom."

"It wasn't just him, was it? I mean, you're probably just kissing whoever you want, whenever you want."

"I didn't think we were serious," Axel answers sincerely, his voice soft and calm.

"We're not, but we're still friends, Axel, for God's sake. I've been sharing you like a Charging Station and I didn't even know that. Fuck, we've even done it with no condoms."

"Oh, come on. You know I'm clean."

" _Oh,_ do I?" Harry rolls his eyes. "A little respect would still be nice."

"Hey, Harry, I'm sorry. I really am – never in a million years I'd guess I would upset you. I thought you were doing the same!"

"Well, I wasn't," the boy raises his hands quickly, lifting his eyebrows. "I was not, Axel, because I didn't need to. Being with me only wasn't enough?"

Axel puffs, eyes running through the shop windows without really seeing anything. He licks his lips nervously and then gets back to looking at Harry, inhaling deeply before he speaks again.

"You know I've wanted this for so long... This. Us. I didn't... I just didn't think being with other people would matter to you."

"You could've asked."

"I'm sorry, Harry, I really didn't...-- 'S my bad."

"The first time we hooked up... I showed you Louis and told you he was one the guys who..." he clears his throat, "bully me. That didn't change anything for you?"

"I did not remember him. Not until today."

Axel sounded sincere.

"I swear," the dark-haired boy adds, making an involuntary puppy face.

Harry thinks a lot about whether he should say this next thing or not, but he has to be honest. If that wasn't the perfect moment for that, then what would be?

"I won't fall in love, Axel. My shield's up for now and I'm sorry. I just think we should stop what we're doing before _you_ do."

"This conversation is going the wrong way," Ax furrows his eyebrows. "Harry, I can take care of myself."

"And I can't not take care of you, Ax. It's who I am and you all know that. I just think it's better to hurt a little bit now than a lot lot later."

"Right," the boy says, swallowing hard. It was already aching. Axel wouldn't enjoy being without Harry, but he had a point. He already found him fascinating enough without having romantic feelings for him, and maybe because of that he was very likely to develop them eventually.

Deep down, he knew that moment was not about Harry or even about himself. It was about the boy at the bar.

"Can we go to my place?"

"It's going to be the last time," Harry warns, feeling a little smile blossom in the corner of his mouth.

That was a little jerky of him to ask, but he cared more about doing the do than actually staying mad at Axel.

Going to his place was a win-win situation.

"Then we better make it unforgettable," Axel laughs despite everything that just happened and holds Harry's hand, heading to his apartment.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violent delights have violent ends.

Gabby was a walking chaos. Not only her body had a hangover, but her mind. It was the morning after and she was still asking herself when would she stop being dumb when it comes to Bear.

She was feeling extremely guilty for acting like Colleen didn't exist. She finds her best friend before he can even think of which way he has to take for his first class, hugging him tight and closing her eyes. He was a walking chaos as well, just like her, they both with disheveled hair and mindlessly picked clothes.

"It looks like you haven't had good night of sleep in a hundred years," she says, running her thumbs through the reddish dark-circles under Harry's green eyes.

"Same to you," he smiles, getting Gabby's bangs away from her face. "I sort of broke up with Axel."

"I know. Bear told everyone."

"Unbelievable," the boy widens his eyes. "It all happened yesterday."

"Better safe than sorry, isn't it?" she shrugs, gesturing towards her locker. She picks the Astronomy and Biology books, shoving them inside her jeans backpack. "I kissed Bear yesterday. Gotta figure out a way of telling Colleen about this."

Harry does not spare Gabby of commentaries about how much he thinks that was the stupidest idea ever, even though he knew that, at that point, she was already numb to them. His warnings and disapproval had no effect whatsoever, but it is a friend's job to harp on the same string.

"Just do it quickly, like ripping of a Band-Aid. Don't wait until things get worse," he says and that serves him well, too. That is, if he could go back and act differently about his own problems.

He felt sorry for his diary. After he left Axel's place, he wrote on the beige pages so viciously there were water blisters on his fingers.

After he says bye to Gabriela, it's time to head to the library and start his daily routine of missing all the classes and wait for the consequences to fall over him. He was not on the mood to be in the same room as any of those people, even though he has to eat at the cafeteria like a normal person later on. The boy even joins Gabby, Jaden, Celeste and, surprisingly, Charlotte. She didn't usually ate with him, but he didn't really mind that. Char did not have to keep an agenda with Harry's social life.

That day she was only trying to compensate Harry for hanging out with Louis. She tried to talk about it with him when he got home, but it turned into angry yelling by the first minute. It woke up their parents and Adrian got out of his bedroom and pulled each child into their own bedroom by the ear, just like he did every time Harry and Charlotte had a fight ever since they were little.

Gabby skips her last classes just like Harry – who, by the way, spent a full hour drawing circles on a notebook page instead of doing some research or anything remotely useful. It was not one of his best days. Their absences in class comes from different places, though. While Harry was on board in his paranoia, Gabby was desperately trying to get rid of hers.

She summons a meeting over coffee with Colleen – solemnly like that. No smiling faces in the text or anything: the girl wanted it to be clear that she was going to be serious, especially when she apologized. They had promised each other they would leave Bear behind since he did not deserve any of them two. That wasn't only a matter of honoring their friendship, but themselves, using the same reason that befriended them to help them keep their self-respect roaring.

The girls didn't have the easiest friendship with Bear because they always had to play cool around him. Constantly holding back like that ended up like this: two beers in and Gabby's principles went down the drain.

Much for her surprise, though, Colleen owns up she kissed him about a month earlier. Gabby can't help but feel betrayed and even angry for that matter, because, well, would Colleen ever say anything about that if Gabby hadn't done the same? Either way, she swallows these feelings away. Maybe the redhead was betrayed too, but she wasn't whining like a baby about it.

"Thanks for telling me," Colleen says, pouring some sugar on her coffee absent-mindedly. "But I don't think we should make any more deals when it comes to Bear. It wasn't working anyway and, besides that, I'm out, either you agree with it or not."

"Wow," Gabby raises her eyebrows.

"I'm not trying to be rude," she opens a small smile. "But I really don't want to be in this endless loop, hurt whether I'm with Bear or not. I'll start treating him as an actual friend and I think you should do the same."

"Have you met somebody new?" the blonde asks, incredulous. When did that start being so easy for Colleen?

"No, silly, I did not," Colleen smiles again. "I'm just really super fucking tired. Chasing my own tail is no fun anymore."

And, just like that, with Colleen suddenly abandoning the Let's-Try-To-Resist-To-Bear game, Gabby got her freedom pass, not right in that second, but a few days or weeks later. At the end of the day, all they needed was to take a step forward instead of standing in a safe position. There was no man worth sacrificing a friendship for but, more than that, there was no one worth becoming a bargain to.

⊹⊹⊹

Fund-raising. Maybe that was a good way for Harry to take his mind off what it had become: a plane runway – noisy and chaotic or completely monotonous. All or nothing. His mind did not know 'balanced' anymore.

The fund-raising event and the beginning of finals marked the end of May. All teenagers were supposed to abandon their Russian roulettes position and study their asses off. Things were as serious as they could get, especially for the seniors who would absolutely not want to be in summer school.

The graduation was so close they could almost trip on it. The notion that this day would come always existed quietly, like an extra package of condoms you keep in the drawer but never really get to use, except for a few people. Some students lived graduation since the beginning of the school year, whether it was planning the trip – they liked this idea better than having a party – or writing college essays and visiting their campuses.

Thank God Harry had already sent his, as is customary. If talking about himself and his ambitions back then was nerve wrecking, imagine if he had to do that now. They all would probably end like:

_You know what? Forget everything I just wrote. I have no ambitions or talents whatsoever, unless you consider being able to curl up into a ball or become a blanket burrito for entire weekends impressive. In that case, I know how to do two things right in life._

See ya.

Or not.

It's not like I even care.

At that point, he even hated his off-standard SAT scores because it would guarantee him a future, and he hated the idea of even staying awake for that very day.

The day started early. At 9AM, Harry and Jaden were basically climbing a KIA Soul, wet shirts right in the first second of volunteering. The fact that they grew closer made the clock run faster, since they spent time splashing water on each other and laughing about concerned car owners – well, Harry could not blame them. No way he would leave his car in the hands of a bunch of environmentalist teenagers; can you imagine if they washed his car with soap made of used corn oil or something?

The students had also set up a recreation area for kids and, even though the purpose of that was giving some free time to parents, it ended up being like a mini park where the family had to wait around the fences for endless 40 minutes. Students or not, strangers were still strangers, and trusting their kids to them would be even worse than trusting their cars.

The only thing ruining Harry's sunny day was the fact that – oh, guess who – Louis was at the same share of the parking lot as him, rubbing a sponge on a Mercedes with an unhappy look on his face. He normally would spend the day in the gymnasium playing soccer, as he did last year, but rumour has it that he and Quentin were having a few tactical disagreements with the team that were getting quite personal. His wrinkled forehead was probably caused by half of his invisible crown melting over it.

He looked around every two rubs, as if a superhero would come and rescue him anytime now, after all, Nice Human day were only meant for _regular_ students of Nuthatches – and, well, nice humans. Being a soccer player there, apparently, killed the two birds.

That was all coming to an end. It was time for them to start waving their goodbyes to the throne, which was probably causing some stress among the boys of the team, who had never been masters in controlling their own nerves. They were not much of a good team, honestly, except for one or two prominent players. The mere existence of a team in that school followed a cultural flux, not a philosophical one. The students' devotion to games were born from encouragement created by the players, not the principal.

Harry wondered if the little fights between Louis-and-Quentin and the rest of the boys were happening because they had finally noticed that they were less of a team and more of opponents. At the Interstate, the scouts would only be interested in the best players and that probably set a silent competition between them.

Anyhow, that was none of his business, so he got his attention back to the car, holding a handheld vacuum to clean off the remains of chips from the floor. That vehicle smelled like cheap deodorant and grease at the same time.

He would not choose to live that day if he actually had a choice, but maybe it would do him some good to understand that it was better to be upset with the implosion of his and Louis' house of cards than still be in the eye of the storm, lost about what the next day would save for them and their cat and mouse fight.

It was all over now and even though his thoughts still converged to the boy with thin beard and blue eyes in his visual field, he had nothing else to worry about anymore. Soon, Louis would be gone for good. It would be relieving and better, and Harry looked forward to the moment things would start being about him and his new life free of old issues: _his_ new friends, _his_ dorm, _his_ college schedule. He still had to make his decision. He had been accepted into a few good ones. Not Columbia – _shit_ , not Columbia –, but, well, _other ones._ It wasn't what he pictured the entire time, but at least it was something – they sure held some promises for him, too, and, God, at least he would be more independent and away from the entire history people built about him in High School.

These were the main two things flashing through his mind: his future and Louis Tomlinson. The fact that he couldn't make himself think of Axel more than the inevitable only made him more sure that he did the right thing by 'breaking up' with him.

He glances at the boy, mentally cursing for doing so, since their eyes meet. If Louis were only looking around like he did the entire day or looking specifically at Harry, he would never know and, also, he shouldn't care.

"I think we're done here," Jaden says, tapping the car's bonnet.

"Nice job, man," Harry agrees, fist bumping him quickly. "But it's only just begun."

He points to the two cars lined up behind the KIA and Jaden snorts.

"Too late to quit school and go open a hot-dog place?"

Harry laughs and grabs a towel from the plastic chair besides them, throwing it on the seat so it would not get wet when he sat. He parks the car further. When he gets started on the BMW, it doesn't take long for his arms to start feeling sore. He was having the worst fucking time ever. Jaden, on the other hand, seemed to be having fun showing himself off to Jordyn Rogers. At a certain point, he gives up on being subtle and smiles at her, and the blonde wearing retro glasses smiles back. Harry asks about the girl.

"She is one of Celeste's friends. Crazy babe," he laughs.

Harry takes another look at the short girl. She was wearing black shorts and a cut out swimsuit. He shrugs inconclusively.

"She's pretty," he says.

"Yeah! But I don't think I have a shot with her, I don't know. Would be sure if I had the guts to try."

"You've never?"

"No," he smiles.

"And you never will?"

"Probably not, man, look at her!"

Harry laughs.

"And, speaking of Celeste, she asked me to invite you to her birthday party this weekend. You can bring whoever you want, even though half the school is already invited."

"Sixteens?"

"Hell yeah. She's getting her first car," Jaden smiles. "So, you're coming?"

"Sure," Harry smiles back, throwing a bucket of water in the front window.

Parties with new friends: he could get used to that.

⊹⊹⊹

"Okay, what do I have to do?" Louis enters the locker room all of a sudden, which scares Harry and sends his finger right onto the zipper teeth of the jeans he was about to close. He grunts, puts his thumb between his lips and licks it, trying to ease the sting.

Since when did Harry have abs?

"Here, princess, let me kiss it back to life," Louis mocks, taking Harry's hand between his. The taller boy rolls his eyes. He finishes getting dressed and combs his hair back with his fingers, trying to ignore the presence of Louis... in a white motherfucking wet white shirt.

He shoves all of his belongings in his backpack but, when he's about to leave the room, David Patterson calls him from one of the shower stalls.

"Hey, Harry Styles, are you still there?" he squeaks. He probably was just trying to speaking loudly, but his voice was very, very squeaky.

The boy sticks his head out the stall before Harry can think of sneaking out.

"Yeah," he says. His voice is thick and even huskier for not speaking for so long, since there wasn't much to talk about with David even in regular situations, let alone in shower.

David was this odd dude that couldn't move on from the fact that Harry beat him in some World's History contest. Harry used to have some sympathy for him since, you know, none of them had friends or could escape bullying (just the other week Harry got locked inside the janitor's locker and had to call Gabby to take him out of there), but it ended when Harry found out what a competitive shady snake David was. It could get quite unpleasant to have a walking toothpick glaring at you every. single. week.

"I forgot my towel on the bench next to you," David says. Louis snorts and folds his arms on his chest, impatient over the interruption. He was about to raise a white flag, for fuck's sake.

Another one.

Harry breathes impatiently and grabs the Star Wars towel, handing it to the boy in the shower, and nods in disapproval.

"Lucky you I'm not resentful," he says and walks back to his backpack, heading towards the door.

"Wait a fucking second, man," Louis says and pulls Harry by the handle of his black backpack printed with little card suits symbols.

"Leave me alone," Harry cries out, but Louis feels like acting pretty fucking adamant, landing the boy on the bench and standing in front of him.

So... Louis was also wearing black Nike Fly shorts...

"Okay, fine, let this be a monologue then, crybaby," Louis rolls his eyes and rests one hand on his hip.

"Sounds fun, but there's other people in here," he says, pointing at David changing in front of a locker next to them. He glances behind his back and puts on some shorts, pretending Harry is not talking about him.

"Who, Lurch there?" Louis asks dismissively. "For God's sake, he doesn't even have someone whom he can gossip about this."

" _Really_ fun. You plan on beginning with the part you became a jerk or the one you've always been one?"

"Please, Harry," Louis rolls his eyes again. His practical ways neglected those little attacks Harry insisted on having. "How about I start with the part we kissed at _fifteen,_ when I was utterly confused about who I was and probably made a mistake?" he says and David looks at him with wide eyes. Louis shows him his middle fingers.

"The kiss... was a mistake?" Harry laughs dryly. He feels like his heart is being dragged down to a place inside his body he cannot exactly target. "Wow. All right."

"I was fifteen."

"No, Louis, _I_ was fifteen. You were sixteen."

"Spare me. I was supposed to be the king of maturity or something? We're different now."

Harry gets up.

"No, you're right," he curves his lips down. "You weren't supposed to be anything."

He starts walking towards the exit but stops at the door, turning to Louis again.

"And you know what's changed? We loved each other so freaking much back then. Now, we fucking hate each other's guts. That's what's different, pal."

He then leaves the room, kicking a ball in his way out and watching it hit a goal post fiercely.

_These violent delights have violent ends._

Isn't it what Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet?

And isn't Romeo and Juliet a major mockery of love and how wrong people are at their early teenage years?

So there's that. Finally, a closure thought that brought some credibility with it, because, when it came to Harry, what did he know about endings? He was still lost about what exactly were the delights and the ends between him and Louis. How many times did they end things, but not really, and just kept adding plot twists to their story?

What was the ultimate delight? Was it their kiss or was it the fact that Harry kind of got a kick out of having heated confrontations with Louis, since it was better than having nothing at all? How disgusted should he feel by himself if he was actually allowing someone to hurt him because he prepared himself for scars more than he prepared himself for the lack of it?

Why _did_ he care?

Good thing, perhaps, is that he is numb to this internal monologue, so kicking the ball is processed by his body as sufficiently relieving. Thus, everything feels, indeed, like an end; it is somewhat peaceful. His chest's not tight. He doesn't feel like crying, nor is he angry. Was that truce? Would his body finally stop responding to Louis' stimulations?

If yes; good. That was what he deserved: indifference. A ball kick. A reaction that starts and ends in seconds, instead of crushing Harry little by little.

No grudge, no pity, no grip. Only indifference. He couldn't do more for Louis than those two stupid assignments; going beyond that was undrinkable, and he was tired of shoving effort down his throat.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis wants to give up, but can't.

Louis retires in the place Harry wanted him to retire: lack of try. In the days that follow, he ignores the urgent necessity of fixing things that grows stronger in his chest. Regardless of the reason why he was trying to redeem, it was time to stop. Harry had respected his space when he decided to drift away, years ago, and, now, he should probably just do the same.

If he could.

Because something about leaving Harry alone sounded like a big fucking mistake.

Thinking of that, he tried to blame Harry for them being where they were. _If he wasn't so feckless, if only he looked for me to ask what was going on, maybe we wouldn't be so hopelessly apart_ , he concluded, but the thought stopped making sense right in the following second. He was definitely the one who should carry the blame for everything turning to dust, yet he could not deny he wanted, at least, to have the chance of explaining himself, whether it was to make up once and for all or only to soothe the ocean that kept them apart.

Knowing he had hurt Harry wasn't easy, just like it's never easy to be an idiot with someone who has a good heart. What made him extremely bitter was that the green-eyed boy constantly chose to see what was convenient for him. He said Louis had become an arrogant person, but he knew that was something he always had been. Even though some of his personality traits had increased in such way they were now flaws, Louis had always been a little bit arrogant, rude and his sense of humor were not always very bright.

And what hurt the most was that Harry knew why he was like that. He knew why Louis preferred to keep himself to himself. Being arrogant had nothing to do with thinking he was better than other people. Harry was supposed to fucking remember that!

He was bound by circumstances. Unlike Harry, he had never ever felt the need of putting manners over sincerity. Even though most times he was stone cold towards people he didn't particularly gave a shit about, obnoxious people asked for sassy treatment. And some other were just victim of Louis' trust issues, whatever. There were quite a few people in this world who could call him arrogant, but not Harry, because, man, did he treat him right.

Harry was the one in his life he cared deeply for. Couldn't he take that into consideration? Louis was sweet to him, he was soft... When he made the decision Harry and he couldn't be friends anymore, he took this bit of himself back, but it was not like it didn't count. It happened. It was as real for him as it was for Harry.

He sort of missed wanting to be like that with someone. Ever since things ended with Harry, he had never been sweet to anyone. No one deserved it. It wasn't like he was a prize on top of the shelf, of course, which people had to fight and bleed for, but, even in an spontaneous way, no one touched Louis' core enough to soften him, not romantically nor merely fraternally.

His friends were assholes. As a team, they were associated by convenience, without ever thinking their compatibility through. Chad, for example, one of his best friends, could be a jerk, but it wasn't really difficult to stand him when Louis himself had learned how to be one. Acquaintanceship is something that can really ruin people's personality, and with those boys his ego had been so patted and his behavior influences had been so utterly stupid that he became what he was today: a worse version of himself from many perspectives, including Harry's.

Having the chance of hearing from his rosy lips how disappointing this new version was, though, made some part of him roar in discontent. He did not want to be a despicable person, he wanted to be something close to what he was before – no more, no less. Not passive as Harry nor aggressive as the _new_ Lou. If Harry, that used to think that in Louis lived the source of all fluxes, couldn't see nothing good in the boy anymore, then maybe he really was tainted.

He was hoping that, if he managed to get into a college, he could do things differently. Perhaps a fresh start was all he needed. He would be playing for Columbia's soccer team, since anything could happen, but he would not be the prototype of player who thinks he is God's gift to the world. It didn't make sense to get the boy out of High School, but not High School out of the boy.

He already had enough rocking-chair regret.

Louis would've appreciated it if Harry gave him a chance to make things between them right before anything else could change for the older boy but, since he didn't want it to happen, there was nothing left to do. He couldn't insist, trample over Harry's will just so his could be satisfied. Stepping back, this time, was an act of bravery, so he resigned and went on with life.

Saturday night, he took a cab to Celeste's house. It was a bummer not to own a car but, well, anything due to New York's safety. God, he was _such_ a nice human!

Or maybe his mom wasn't that much of a nice human, since she'd established he would only get a car if he got into a college (which was probably a lie, since his mother was broke). Although he knew Natalie had probably forgotten that promise already, he still used that as fuel. Thinking of the car got him more determinate to play well and get a sport scholarship. He'd love to get into Columbia, since he really liked New York (way more than he liked Columbus, the city in Ohio he used to live in), but others could be good too. He'd move to California if he got into Stanford; or Connecticut if he got into Yale. The only thing he knew was that he wanted to go to one of the big ones and make his father proud, even though they had not spoken in a year.

Even if his dad didn't love him, he could still be proud of him, right?

According to his mother, Bradley had given up on this family thing. After he asked for divorce for the second time, his life of wealthy bachelor only got better, and Louis didn't look for him to hear the obvious updates: the man did not want a kid on his way.

Bradley, on the other hand, looked for Louis, but, for the boy, his timing sucked. After two months without hearing a word from his dad, last thing he wanted was to let him into his life again. At the end of the day, Bradley never made that much of a difference. He'd always been a business man, distant and busy, both in his childhood and the teenage years in which he lived in Bradley's one million square feet apartment.

The house was completely full, every inch of it occupied by teenagers holding red cups. The place smelled like a variety of perfumes and _people_ , but mainly alcohol. Most of the people were either people he didn't know or wasn't close to – and even though they wave at him, he just keeps walking. Chad, Jackson and George are at a corner, so he makes a mental note of which direction to avoid.

He tries to find Celeste among the crowd to wish her a happy birthday, as dictated by protocol. It is not that hard. She is sat on top of a piano (Louis missed playing it. The only one he'd ever touched belonged to his grandmother and was in Ohio) drinking straight from a bottle of Belvedere Red, grimacing at each sip, surrounded by friends that laugh goofily to one another as Louis approaches.

"There you are!" he smiles and stands in front of her, hugging the girl by the waist. She uninhibitedly hugs him back with her legs, the vodka accentuating her evasive personality. "Happy birthday! I brought you a great gift."

"Really?" her brown eyes light up.

"No," Louis chuckles. "But I'm here, right? Show me where to go so I can get this party started."

"Louis and booze: a love story," she says, making a broad gesture with her hands. A little bit of the drink drips from the bottle. "The bar is by the entrance door. I'm surprised your natural instincts did not drag you there as soon as you stepped in the house."

"Got it, Cel," the boy laughs once again. "Want to come, Char? Your glass is empty."

The girl swallows hard, looking at her cup as if she needed to make sure it was empty. Last thing she wanted was to have another fight with Harry because of Louis, but it wasn't like she was doing anything wrong. Harry did not need to worry about her and Louis being anything other than friends, and it was natural that it happened, because they had many mutual friends. Plus, she was still dating Justin and never in a million years she would kiss a guy whom Harry had already kissed. Even though she did thought Louis looked like a Greek god hand-painted by talented angels, Charlotte respected her brother beyond words.

"Are you having fun?" he asks, quickly touching the center of Charlotte's forehead. "Little freak at a mansion party."

"On duty, man," she nods, smiling lightly. "Had to drop out my Bob's Burgers marathon to come here and get drunk."

"Except you're too sober," he says, making room through so many couples kissing. "Damn."

"You're taking me to the right place, then. The drinks here are unbelievable."

"Are they?"

"Considering I haven't had that many drinks in my life, yeah. Off-standard."

"Right," he says. "Did you come alone?"

He picks at his cuticle nervously, finally reaching the bar. There's a little queue, which he jumps, sticking himself between two strangers that were way too drunk to even notice the boy there.

"Yeah," she says, furrowing her eyebrows. "I mean, I came with Marina. You know her, don't you?"

"I do. I thought you'd come in your own car," he speculates.

"Then I wouldn't be drinking," she says. "But, no, I don't own a car. I failed my practice test," she smiles, slightly embarrassed. "Harry usually drives me around."

"Oh, is he here?" he asks casually, and Charlotte can't help but giggle.

"Is that what you wanted to ask me from the go?" Char raises an eyebrow.

"No, not really!" he lies. "He's your brother, I just... asked for no reason."

"Got it," she nods. Louis then insists they take a tequila shot, so that's what they do. There is a second round for both of them and she settles for a weak Cosmopolitan, while Louis drinks a third shot before ordering a beer.

Truth is Charlotte does not figure out how to properly hate him on behalf of her brother's pride. Louis was a fun person, especially with drinks in his system, and she was starting to wonder if Harry wasn't being too harsh on him. The thought makes her feel guilty, though.

They were sat on the stairs and Louis was singing Salt, by Bad Suns, aloud. That made her laugh.

"You're killing me!" she says, feeling dizzy. Getting drunk was an easy business for her.

The song changes and Louis manages to get even more excited.

" _Aye yo, Cee-Cee,_ " he sings with a smile on his face, looking at her. " _Let me show you how to do a singing bitch greasy._ Uh, that's a bit fucking disgusting."

"Oh my God."

"Do you wanna dance?"

"Sure," she shrugs, leaving her cup aside while Louis goes to the bar and asks for two beers (and ends up having them both, since Charlotte didn't like beer). How loose Louis got when he was dancing surprises her. Most boys just followed the head-nod code, which was okay, seriously, because what happens to a male body when it tries to dance, really? Might as well leave the party and get casted as Frankenstein in a musical. Louis was a good dancer, though, so he doesn't look awkward. Maybe he's acting that carefree because he knows his position in school hierarchy keeps him off the target of those people who make fun of guys who don't try too hard to look like Superman all the time (that is, his own friends).

Well, that and the alcohol he already ingested.

When they go their own separate ways, Charlotte tries to think that staying a while with Louis was Horror Time, but it is not convincing at all. Thank God Harry did not see them. It was 2AM, so he was probably already at the party. Still, he didn't come near the non-dynamic double her and Louis made, or else he'd try to take her off the terrible claws of Louis Tomlinson that did nothing but dance to her.

Louis goes outside and almost falls on his back, laughing at himself, when he tries to sit on the back porch floor. The fresh breeze blows his hair and he can't hear anything but an undistinguishable hollow beat coming from inside. The sound of a passed-out dude's cellphone ringing is clearer than that.

The ringtone was an instrumental version of Jesus, by Brand New, and Louis hums the lyrics along, with occasional pauses to take drags on a cigarette.

_Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face, the one you'd find on someone that could save, if they don't put me away, well, it'll be a miracle._

Well, Jesus Christ, I'm alone again, so what did You do those three days you were dead? 'Cause this problem's gonna last more than the weekend.

That song was heavy and sad, so he convinces himself he isn't really feeling it; humming the lyrics was just revived memory, even though it fits so many gaps of his life... Because he was definitely feeling alone. And because he could use some saving, but this type of things happened somewhere indeed, not to him.

No love story would want him and his messiness as guests.

He was definitely honest about that to himself. People always picture love in certain ways, and the way he pictured it... God, there was just no room for someone like him in something so awesome, made for lion-hearted people.

Either way, that wasn't the moment or the place to prompt some philosophical discussion with himself, so he gets into the house again and has another beer. Even though he was strong for drinks, his stomach was not armored and, soon, there it is, the heavy effects of alcohol. The boy was probably already drunk before, he just didn't realize it.

First thing he does is hooking up with one of Celeste's friends for a long time, refugee with her in a corner.

She was gorgeous, with platinum blond hair and strong dark eyebrows. _Chiaroscuro._ Her kiss was good and she had really soft hands that caressed his cheeks, neck and hair on and on but, even being near perfect (especially taking in consideration the state of his mind), she caused on him what all girls did: it was easier with eyes closed.

He liked her minty breath and the way she giggled wrinkling her nose, but nothing, not even her cuteness, could lead it somewhere even remotely relevant. Louis didn't want her number. He didn't want to keep in touch or go to the bedroom or whatever they could possibly do together.

Okay, maybe going to the bedroom wasn't that much of a bad idea. Thing was the girl was too nice to become another Ashley in his life, whom he kept a relationship merely sexual and opportunist – shaped like that by both of them.

That is why he takes his time with the girl, but does not stay there forever. Louis was extremely, extremely drunk. Even the voice in his head was tripping on its words. The boy feels like laughing over everything and then he sees Chad and this feeling goes away. He walks bravely towards the blond – who, for the record, was twice his size –, pokes him on the chest and points out how selfish and stupid he was for thinking he could mold the team the way he felt like, when Louis was a thousand times better at it.

"I'm one of the best players," he keeps going even though Chad is coming his way. "And you're one of the worst. Bow down, bitch."

"Feeling like Superman, are we?" Chad says, butt hurt by the truth he had just heard from Louis' drunken lips. "Can handle it."

He punches Louis' mouth so hard the boy sees stars, and not in a good way. Although he was quite numb because of all the shots of tequilas and the bottles of beer, the punch hurts in astronomical levels, and he wishes he never gets hit like that when sober. Some boys help him, dragging Louis to the porch by the arms so he can get some fresh air, but no one stays to check on him. Well, no one but Jordyn, the girl he was kissing a few minutes earlier; the rest of the people do not look like they are in the mood to take care of a drunk idiot with bleeding lips.

"Son of a motherfucking lab rat," is the only thing Louis manages to murmur. Jordyn helps him lay down on the sofa, resting his head on her thighs, and cleans up his lips with a napkin. Judging by he way her thick black eyebrows were furrowed, her worry seemed genuine.

"Ouch," Jordyn says. Her voice was melodic. "I'm sorry for that," she adds and presses the napkin on his thin lips.

"Ouch!" he exclaims with different connotation.

"My bad," Jordyn laughs, moving her hands more gingerly. "I don't mean to be a bitch, but I'll leave in a bit. My ride is about to take off."

"Yeah?" Louis asks, distracted by the pain.

"Uh-huh. Is there any friend of yours in this party who would stay here with you?"

Louis holds out his phone, asking the girl to look for "Haz" in the contact list.

"Call him from your phone," he asks. "Tell him Charlotte is in the porch feeling sick."

She does as said and in a matter of seconds Harry is there, instantly getting a privileged view of Louis Tomlinson and the girl. He rolls his eyes and mentions to leave, but Louis asks him to wait.

"Jordyn has to leave. I need you to take me home or I'll die trying to do that by myself."

Harry furrows his eyebrows at the scene. Louis was laid on a girl's lap, who were caressing his hair and cleaning his bloody lips, and it was Harry he called for help.

"I can't stay," she says apologetically. "Got a drive home that's leaving in five."

"It's all right," Harry says, trying not to take his anger out on her. He knew it wasn't her fault, it was Louis', who had no real friends who could stand him drunk and hurt.

Jordyn gets up, motioning her eyebrows like an apology once again, and Harry gives her a small smile. He has this feeling he knows the girl from somewhere, but he only remembers when she's already inside the house.

Harry calls her back outside.

"I know you were just with my friend, but could you do something for me?"

The girl pulls a disgusted expression.

"Excuse you, you idiot. As you said, I was just with your friend!"

"Not that kind of thing," Harry laughs and Jordyn swallows hard, feeling her cheeks burn red.

"Oh," is all she says.

"Louis is unworthy of your time," he says and smiles. "But I have a friend who thinks you're really beautiful, and maybe you could, I don't know, hang out some time?"

"Who?" she asks with a playful smile dancing on her lips. The Bordeaux lipstick she was wearing was almost entirely gone.

"Jaden Hunn."

"Oh," her brown eyes light up. " _Does he think I'm beautiful?_ "

"He does. Don't tell him I told you, though."

"Okay!" she says excitedly.

"I can give him your number."

"There's no need to," she smiles. "I'll talk to him on Monday."

"Nice," Harry smiles, feeling happy for them. At the end of the day, Jaden would not to have to give Jordyn a shot. She would do that for them.

"I'll see you around...what's your name again?"

"Harry."

"I'll see you around, Harry," she waves and gives her back to him, walking back to the exit.

"So I am unworthy of her time?" Louis asks when Harry is standing in front of the door, deciding whether he should walk back inside or to Louis.

Harry ends up walking to Louis when he starts throwing up.

⊹⊹⊹

Harry has to drag Louis to the Mercedes, carrying the boy with his arms holding Harry's shoulders. He presses a button of the tiny remote control in his hand, thinking he could smash it if he wanted to, and pushes Louis onto the car seat the best way he can. He loosens up his body, partially laid down, and murmurs something Harry cannot grasp.

The younger boy gets in the car up next, taking a deep breath. Louis needed help and he was the only one remotely available for the task. Back to square one, the irrefutable point where the blue-eyed boy pointed fingers and the green-eyed one tried to take it in. This thought bothers him, so he tries a change of perspective.

He wasn't there supporting Louis because there was no way to escape from that; he was helping him because he wanted to, because he would never leave him there, one step away from choking on his own vomit. That wasn't about Louis imposing something to Harry, but to Harry imposing something to himself: that his nature spoke louder than the adversities between him and the boy sat next to his body.

What he had to do was simple: drive to Louis' place. As he recalled, it was a small apartment in Harlem, which settled the time they would have to stay together in the same car to 20, 30 minutes tops.

 _If_ Harry was not drunk.

Although he clearly did not drink as much as Tomlinson, his hands could not hold the wheel without lazily sliding down on it, protesting against the fact Harry wanted to drive in that state of mind – half-sleepy/half-bubbly. He was a freaking dumbass for even considering driving after a few drinks and he knew that, so he'd wait.

"Can't drive now," he says, considering the possibility of putting Louis in a cab but giving up when he sees the boy almost asleep on the seat. He couldn't tag along. The boys knew that was his car and God knows what they'd do to it if their drunk selves saw it just sitting there at the driveway.

The car was surrounded by trees and tall light poles of Celeste's frontyard, and Harry can see the gigantic house in the back, lighted but silent from that distance. He wishes he could go back to the party. Surprisingly, Harry was having fun.

Louis suddenly motions his body forward, smashing his forehead against the panel. He groans.

"Are you going to throw up?" Harry asks, apprehensive.

"No," something close to a word comes out of Louis's throat with a lot of effort. He makes a blunt move and takes off the jeans jacket. His arms show in the sleeveless white shirt he is wearing. "Would I be the worst if I asked you to get me some water?"

"You already are."

"Okay," Louis stutters. "Would you get some water for the worst person ever?"

"Sure, why not? All I ever wanted for today was babysitting a friend," he replies sarcastically, unlocking the doors and pushing his violently.

"We're not friends," Louis says with difficulty before Harry can shut the door.

The boy in a black shirt opens his lips in disbelief. Was it possible that someone could be so nasty, especially when Harry was doing nothing but favors to Louis, or was he having a bad dream?

"We're not friends because I am a piece of shit," he finally finishes the sentence and Harry swallows dryly. The boy does not get much more of an answer than the sound of the door slamming. He watches the tall, wavy-haired boy walk away, either going to get a glass of water for Louis or abandoning him to his own luck – which was lacking.

He asks himself when did Harry's hair start growing so fast because, last time he was with him and paid attention, his curls were not so subtle and nearing the shoulders. Harry was definitely going through some sort of transformation. His wide, self-assured curls of when he was fifteen seemed to be turning into something else more and more, now only apparent in his neckline. The rest of his hair was almost straight and falling smoothly around his face.

Perhaps Louis would let his own hair grow, too.

He had to admit that was quite impressive, Harry being caring _besides._ Besides – God, and did Louis smile thinking of that – the older boy getting on his nerves. Besides his rudeness, lack of commitment, disloyalty and mood swings. Besides what he had been and what he still was. Besides the fact that Louis hooked up with Axel – and, man, deep down he knew he had seen him with Harry. Besides being a bitch to Harry's best friend... and messing up more than once – which, to that point, was not mere slips anymore, but a reassurance of how in reverse Louis' traits were.

Except for a few times, like Trailer Park days ago, Harry had never been the complaining type. He did not complain in that porch when he was tricked into helping Louis, even though he clearly was not happy about the situation. It took him days to decide whether it was worth it or not to confront Louis about what he had heard in the hallway, the blue-eyed boy had noticed. He never came to Louis to ask why they drifted apart; he just drew his own conclusions and moved on. It was almost like he was so used to being disappointed by people that he couldn't even see the purpose of fighting that anymore. The part of Harry who felt like he needed to speak up about things that bothered him was suppressed and Louis felt sorry for that, and for making Harry feel like it was okay to be a two-friended misfit and then leaving him only with Gabby. And for taking him away from Jaden and Celeste because of his carelessly drinking just when he started fitting in again.

It may seem like he did not give a care in the world about Harry, but Louis was paying attention to him all the time; even the people he were or weren't close to was of the older boy's awareness.

The green-eyed boy is back in a few minutes with a bottle of water and a lollipop the size of a squirrel head (and, when Louis holds it, he dully mumbles _what a big lolllllllly_ ). He hands those to Louis, silently begging him to ingest some glucose. That should make things better.

He turns on the radio while Louis drinks the water, putting the candy away, and No You Girls starts playing. Harry looks, at the same time, excited – for the finger-drumming on his own thighs and the feet moving to the beat – and bored – for the blank look in his eyes.

"Thanks," Louis says, staring at the now empty bottle of water. He tries to place it in the grayish console but ends up smashing the bottle against it. "Sorry. Please, don't be mad at me. I don't want to destroy stuff. I'm going to be good from now on."

Harry nods.

" _I'll be a better man today, I'll be good, I'll be good..._ \--" he starts singing over the music that's playing in the car.

"Louis, shut up," Harry says. "Eat the lollipop, please."

"Don't baby me!" Louis babbles. "You're the baby, not me!"

Harry takes a deep breath and waits. Perhaps his drunkenness would come in waves. Maybe the next one would only arrive when Louis were at his own house taking matters at his own hands.

They share minutes of solid silence. Louis glances at Harry nervously, Harry glances at Louis uncertainly, but their eyes don't meet once. People function in different time zones.

Then, with no previous notice, _I Love You_

"What's so funny?" he asks after some inner reluctance, staring at the boy next to him.

"'M not telling you," Harry says, his laughter ceasing little by little.

"Fuck's sake," Louis rolls his eyes.

"I just..." he smiles. "Man, I thought our situation couldn't get any more ridiculous, but here we are, sitting alone in a car and waiting for me to sober up to take _you_ , out of all people, to your place. _You._ "

"Listening to a song that would speak for you if we had ever gotten serious," Louis decides to play along, sure the alcohol was to blame, but there's nothing he can do about that. Alcohol always had and always would speak louder than him.

"What?" the other one arches the slanted-lined eyebrows, looking directly to Louis.

"Yeah, you know," Louis shrugs. "Except for the siblings bits, I think you could pretty much relate all the rest to me."

Harry thinks a little about the lyrics. You got it wrong, you're kinda rough, kinda sad, maybe you're broke, you got a bad sense of humor, you're a little rough around the edges and soft in the middle and loves those boring instrumental songs, but we get along; I know it's stupid, but I love you. I really, really love you.

Except for the bits talking about brothers and sisters, that was basically what the song said and basically what Harry would have free pass to say if they had ever gotten serious. He couldn't say it aloud, now, but he sure could relate.

He did loved Louis even though they'd always had such different personalities. Being sure about being in love with him was a fogged matter, at times, but love itself was always there; sometimes fraternal, sometimes passionate. He knew that for feeling so whole when Louis kissed him, but none of that should be taken in consideration anymore. Their kiss seemed more like a movie that Harry had seen a long time ago than like something that had happened to him and, for the first time, that thought doesn't weight out.

He'd just had a mood swing, not feeling the severity of being stuck inside an airless car with Louis anymore. Now, he could see how comical the situation really was. All of that was set to make him laugh, so he would laugh about it. He would laugh about how Louis needed him for something and how he was talking about them as a couple. The dust under his carpet wasn't that hard to come out, after all, but Harry would not take advantage of it. Louis was drunk and vulnerable and the green-eyed boy didn't feel comfortable wringing truths from somebody in that state. He knew that Louis would never want to talk about their past with armors down if he was sober, so he says, without succeeding to hide how fun all the situation was to him:

"You're drunk, we should not talk about this type of stuff."

Louis agrees with a head nod but, one minute later, he's talking again.

"You were the one, Harry. I screwed up."

All that Harry does is take a deep breath while widening his eyes and turning up the music. Louis lowers the volume again.

"I'm not asking you to sell me a kidney, Harry, you can listen to me."

"Good. Mine's not worth much."

"You know what I mean. That's not a love declaration, I just..."

"God, Louis, why'd you even call me? To take you to your place or that was just an excuse to have me sat and listening to things that I don't want to listen?" he turns up the volume again, this time in a way that makes his eardrums tingle, but he does not care. No if that drowns Louis' voice.

It's the blue-eyed boy's turn to laugh, his thin lips stretching and the stubble beard following it.

"Check it out," Louis literally screams over the music, handing out his arm to Harry and showing him the owl tattooed on his forearm. "The owl is a night animal. And do you know what the night means to the Greeks? A good moment for philosophical thinking."

"When did you get so smart?" Harry asks ironically, pushing Louis' limb from his lap. He gives in soon, though, turning off the radio.

"I should probably honor this tat and philosophize right now, don't you think?" he ignores Harry.

"No."

What he really wanted to say was: _hey, I've heard owls are also a symbol for freedom, and Louis would be amazed for learning a new thing because of Harry, and then Harry would say, yeah, and I think freedom is never lying to yourself. Doesn't matter how many lies you have to tell other people, if you never feel the need to lie to yourself, that's just cool, isn't it?_

Because he wanted so freaking badly for Louis to be free that he thought that maybe saying something would help.

"I'm just saying you were the one for me. I knew that, then I pretended like I didn't and now I'm realizing that again. Crazy, isn't it?" he asks. "Not so much crazy as it is fucking dumb, but still, isn't it crazy?"

What he really wanted to ask was if Harry felt that way too, like Louis was the one, but nothing, not even alcohol, could make him do it.

Just like that song, 

And all of the rest of it, really. God, every single word. Some songs were the translation of his heartstrings.

Harry swallows hard, feeling the air get heavier inside the car. Every single cell in his body screams for him to leave the vehicle and go get some fresh air, but he does not move.

"I think love never happens as we picture it," Louis shrugs. "It happens more beautifully and if it's real, it doesn't let you rationalize it. You have to feel it, not try to understand it. Too bad I'm this stupid. I threw my golden ticket away, right? There's not much I can do at this point."

"Well, love sucks, anyway."

"Not if it's the right thing. Like it were with us."

Louis says the whole thing as if he was exclusively stating facts, and not talking about something emotional. Facing that conversation as if they were simply sharing impressions about the past makes it easier to let out a little bit of what he had been keeping inside for so long.

"It doesn't matter now."

"I know it does, Harry," Louis rests his head in the car seat again, inhaling deeply. Harry does not understand how he does it, but he's talking about _love_ casually, as if it were the same as talking about what he had for a drink at the party. "You have that tattoo, after all, don't you? Love and luck. Is that what you want in life?"

"I guess so," he gives an honest answer and that surprises Louis, getting him back to looking at Harry. "My tattoos of Frazer's drawings are all about that, actually. Did you know he drew all this nautical stuff about a sailor who missed home because his love was there?"

Louis is still looking at him, eyes wide in surprise and wonder with the fact that Harry was no longer giving him the bitter treatment.

"My best friend told me a while ago that he misses something he's never had. Like, love and all. I think this is kinda what was on my mind when I got these tats," he says. Later on, if he happened to regret this conversation, he would have alcohol to blame it on. "I was missing something. Still sort of miss missing home because of someone I love. Although I think the person you love is your home, in certain ways."

Louis wouldn't have to tell Harry twice; the boy knew he was the one. If Harry wanted a home, the blue-eyed boy could be it, and it was a real shame that things did not follow a certain course. Maybe life saved them better things. Maybe thinking they fit so well together was a misinterpretation.

The older boy can't find anything to say.

"There's a word in Portuguese for what these tattoos mean to me right now: saudade. Guess that's how you pronounce it," he wrinkles his nose. "But I want so bad to have someone that give them a happy meaning someday."

"Saudade," Louis repeats. "Cool. And you know what, man? I miss that too."

"Miss what?"

"Having someone... you know, _like that._

"Like how?" Harry teases. "The kind of person willing to kill monsters for you and sit at Chikako's just because you love Japanese food, even if they hate it?"

"Or someone who wakes up like, 'so, what do you think of swimming across the world today?', just so you can say, 'yeah, I totally think we can do that'. Something like that," Louis smiles, looking down.

"Good luck finding that one."

"Same to you, even though I know you're going to be more successful than I on this quest."

"Why is that?"

"Because I like who you became, Harry. And I'm starting to hate who or _what_ I did."

"So you're just not sure enough."

"How's that?"

"I only have a lame example in storage right now."

"Hit me with your best shot."

"Okay," he laughs. "Do you remember when Charlotte got a pixie haircut?"

"Yes. I hated it."

"Yeah. She didn't. She was going through this phase of being so impressionable and caring so much about what other people thought of her. She felt guilty for liking Backstreet Boys because some girl told her it was lame; she felt guilty for not wanting to go to parties because everyone else was going; she felt ugly for having small breasts 'cause everyone else was getting a boob job. You know? But the pixie cut – fuck, she loved it so much and was so sure of it that she didn't even care when people picked on her for it. She didn't give a shit. She felt like a fairy walking around with it. Self-doubt always made her miserable, but Char waved the one thing she was sure about like a pride flag. It was cool to see. Eventually, people stopped caring. People started liking it. But Charlotte didn't need anyone to validate its existence. It was only there because _she_ wanted it to be."

"That's cool," Louis smiles.

"It is. So figure it out, Louis, but do it for yourself when you think you're ready. That's how the world unravels under people's feet."

"If I take your advice, piss off Chad for being myself and end up in jail for killing him with a fork, will you be my lawyer?"

Harry chuckles. Louis remembered what he wanted to study in college. Wow.

"Actually, I don't want to be a lawyer anymore. I think I want to be a teacher."

"Really?" Louis hides a smile with the back of his hand. Being a teacher... that sounded just like Harry. "Are your parents cool with it?"

"They are. Not really their choice to make, is it?" he shrugs.

Louis nods. "So, an English teacher?"

"Yeah, I was considering it," Harry presses his lips together, smiling. "I don't know. I whether see myself working with kids or college students. No more High School."

"I don't know. That would work for you, too. God knows how in need we are for teachers who actually give a shit instead of telling students to 'just ignore it'."

"You would know, huh?" Harry can't help the bitter tone.

"Yeah, I would know if I felt brave enough to be myself out there," he says, feeling uncomfortable. He never talked about those sort of things with anyone, so he changes the subject. "Well, never mind, then. The judge would probably never give you the case with this much tattoos. Did it ever occur you?"

"It did, but the infinity of things people can possibly think of me don't stop me from doing what I want, Louis. That's the big difference between me and you," Harry gets serious all of a sudden, feeling like he has had enough of that conversation.

He starts the car and drives to Harlem, getting rid of the thorn on his side by parking in front of Louis' building. Either it was possible for two people to have dozens of closure moments or theirs were coming in small doses. Harry hoped that was the last time he'd taste the contradictory feeling of parting ways with Louis without actually saying goodbye; it was heartbreaking and, yet, reliving. Well, well, didn't they share a love they never got to live?

"Wait," Louis says, leaning into the car window before Harry leaves. "If I say I'll make things better for us, would you give me another chance?"

"Why would I do that?" Harry asks impatiently, looking at Louis. "At the end of the day, you're full of shit."

"I'm not lying about this. I really want us to finish school without everything this fucked up. We were such good friends."

" _Good friends?_ " Harry raises his eyebrows, feeling as he would punch the wheel anytime now. "Is that what we were?"

"Yeah," Louis answers, and the saliva he swallows feels more like a tight knot scratching his throat.

"Is that all?"

"Yes?"

"Great. No more chances, Louis. You forgive me, I forgive you, and we move on to find other _good friends._ "

Harry doesn't have enough time to think of why he had to be forgiven. Maybe for not offering enough support to Louis, for backing off just when the boy needed someone who pushed him forward and assured him everything was going to be fine, that kissing dudes was not that much of a big deal, even though people were still such jerks about the whole thing, but who cares about jerks, after all?

Who cares about people who try to embarrass others for being who they are, liking what they like and thinking the way they think?

Louis and many other people. It is not easy to get people to understand that, if someone doesn't want to take you for you, then it's their problem, not yours. If wanting to be with Harry wasn't enough encouragement to help Louis shaking that off, they had already reached the dead end ages ago.

That's why, without waiting for an answer, Harry starts the car again and drives to where he ought to be: his apartment. That's where he'd stay, in the type of home people usually have, with walls, furniture and piped water. His home with limbs, veins and a beating heart had just been left behind and seemed to think that good friends was everything they ever were.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something special inside Harry's locker.

As soon as Harry opens his yellow locker, a neon-orange paper ball falls from it. He does not have time to check what it is because Chad walks towards him.

"Harry!" the tall boy screams. His entire group of friends are right behind him, except for Louis.

Harry gets self-conscious about his hair half-up, hoping the boys don't pull it. All he does is stare at his locker, pretending to be busy with it, and wait for them to get finished with making fun of him.

"Does it hurt if I touch you here?" Chad slaps one of Harry's butt cheeks, which burns really bad and makes the boy curse out loud. The people in the hallway stare at him as if they were waiting for the boy to run and hide. He would not do that, though. He wasn't the one who should be embarrassed, Chad was – but he couldn't care less and was not even there anymore.

"Staring at me won't do anything for anybody, will it now," he murmurs and snorts, grabbing the paper ball from the floor and slamming his locker closed. The boy feels heated with irritation.

He unfolds the paper and stumbles on lines and lines of a sloppy uppercase handwriting. It is kind of cute.

OK, YOU WIN. I CANT BELIEVE IM WRITING YOU A FUCKING NOTE. NEXT TIME, PLEASE, ANSWER THE PHONE. IT IS NOT THAT HARD, YOU IDIOT. I JUST WANTED YOU TO NOTICE A FEW THINGS, LIKE HOW WE ALWAYS END UP TOGETHER. I TRIED TO STAY AWAY FROM YOU BUT MR GARDNER KEPT PUTTING US AS A PAIR IN GYM CLASS. ITS PRETTY UNFORTUNATE, ISNT IT? HA. LAST YEAR, WE HAD TO MOAN THE FIELD'S LAWN TOGETHER IN NICE HUMANS DAY. I KNOW I WASNT THAT NICE AND LEFT YOU WITH MOST OF THE HARD WORK, NO NEED TO MENTION IT. WE ALWAYS END UP IN THE SAME LINE FOR SHOWER. WE RAN INTO EACH OTHER THREE TIMES AT MOLLY'S AND ONE TIME AT ITS BATHROOM!!! I MEAN, IF THERES A GOD HE SURE WANTED US TO START TALKING AGAIN. NOW THIS PARTY EPISODE HAPPENED. DESTINY IS A SHADY LITTLE BITCH, SO I AM SURE EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, INCLUDING ME GETTING DRUNK AND BEING PUNCHED BY CHAD, HAPPENED SO I COULD END UP IN YOUR CAR. WITH YOU. GET IT? YOU COULDVE LEFT ME TO DIE ON THAT CHAIR. BUT YOU DID NOT. "IS THAT ALL?" YOU ASKED. NO. THAT WAS NOT ALL. I LIED. I LIE ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS BECAUSE I AM SO GODDAMN SCARED OF EVERYTHING AND I SURE AS HELL SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR THIS. THE THING IS, I NEVER APOLOGIZED TO ANYONE. UNTIL NOW...

I. AM. SO. INCREDIBLY. SORRY. HARRY. ACCEPT. MY. APOLOGIES. IT. WOULD. MEAN. THE. WORLD. TO. ME.

WE STAYED AGES WITHOUT SAYING A WORD TO EACH OTHER AND, YET, EVERYTIME WE TALK IS LIKE WE ARE STILL CLOSE. I KNOW WE'VE BEEN TOO PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS BUT, GOD, WHEN WE'RE GOOD, WE'RE GREAT. I APPRECIATE THAT AND I'D EARN THE TITLE OF WORLD'S STUPIDIEST BOY IF I LET THIS GO AGAIN. YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON ON THE UNIVERSE WHOM I DONT START CONVERSATIONS WITH AMENITIES BECAUSE WE'RE WAY PAST THE ZERO POINT. WE DONT HAVE TO START ANYTHING, WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING AND GETTING TO THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING IS HARD, SO LETS NOT THROW IT AWAY, RIGHT? YOU'RE STILL THE BOY WHO I CAN TALK TO ABOUT PISS. YOU THINK YOU DONT KNOW ME ANYMORE, SO HERES WHATS CHANGED:

\- THE STRIPED SHIRTS ARE BANISHED FROM MY WORLD

\- IM GOING TO LET MY HAIR GROW

\- I SHAVE EVERY ONCE IN A BLUE MOON CAUSE I LIKE HAVING FACIAL HAIR

\- I CURRENTLY AM THE BEST PLAYER ON THE TEAM (JK, IVE ALWAYS BEEN)

\- I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT BATMAN BEING MY FAVORITE SUPERHERO. I ADMIRE HIS BACKSTORY AND ALL, BUT SPIDER-MAN COULD STILL (AND OBVIOUSLY) KICK HIS ASS BIG TIME

\- PARKS AND REC IS MY FAVORITE TV SHOW

\- I PAINTED MY BEDROOM WALLS DARK GREEN. TURNS OUT IM ALLERGIC TO PAINT

\- THE KISS WAS NOT (!!!!) A MISTAKE. THE KISS MEANT SOMETHING TO ME. IN FACT, IT MEANT EVERYTHING.

\- I CARE ABOUT YOU MORE THAN I EVER DID I JUST SUCK AT SHOWING YOU THAT

\- YEAH, IM GAY? IVE ALWAYS BEEN GAY? IM STILL FINDING OUT? IM TOO SCARED TO TALK ABOUT IT NOW BUT I PROMISE IM TRYING TO FIGURE MYSELF OUT?

\- ONCE UPON A TIME, IN A FARAWAY LAND, A YOUNG BOY NAMED LOUIS TOMLINSON MET A YOUNG PRINCE NAMED HARRY STYLES AND HE WAS VERY CUTE. AS THE YEARS WENT BY, HARRY STYLES TURNED INTO A TALL, MOTHERFUCKING HOT TEENAGER AND LOUIS KEPT WONDERING WHEN WOULD HE START LOOKING OBNOXIOUS. SERIOUSLY. EVEN YOUR PIMPLES ARE KINDA CUTE.

\- ETC WHO CARES

IF I BE LESS OF A JERK, WOULD YOU FINALLY GIVE ME THAT LAST CHANCE TO MAKE OUR FRIENDSHIP WORK? I WONT SCREW EVERYTHING UP AGAIN (THAT IS, LIKE, TWO TASKS FOR ME AND ZERO FOR YOU SO DONT BE A DUMMIE AND SAY YESSSSS)

I CARE ABOUT YOU A LOT, MAN

LOU ◟̽◞̽

It's Thursday, so Harry goes around the school looking for Gabby when the classes finish, before leaving to meet Holland. Harry is feeling _genuinely_ happy for everything he just read and he lets the feeling run freely inside him. The thing simply fills him from head to toe, and he probably deserves that; he deserves to be happy because of something Louis did right, especially when that something could be considered ethereal on a Tommo Scale of Fondness.

He tells Gabby about the note, holding the screaming-orange paper between his fingers, and holds it off when she tries to grab it. Harry wanted to read it himself (which he does, two times in a roll).

"I don't like him, you know that," she says. "But I can't deny he really is trying."

"I want to talk to him... but I also feel that's attesting I'm, I don't know, gullible and make empty treats 'cause I told him a thousand times this – us – was over and now that he sent me this I'll crawl back to hi...--"

"Harry," Gabby cuts him off. "Calm down. Take a deep freaking breath. Cut off the mania of killing joy by overthinking and go make a fool of yourself, who cares?"

"I don't, really," he whispers and hides his face behind his hands, chuckling. "I want to do it. I like him a lot."

"I can tell. You look very, very happy right now. If you want it, go get it."

"Thanks, Gabby."

"You're welcome, donut."

"Gotta rush now."

"Sure you do."

Harry nods and widens his smile to the point it freaks Gabby out – and away. He has to stop himself from skipping along to the car. Once he is in it, he turns the radio on and cranks up the volume until his heartstrings play along. Where would he and Holland go today? That did not matter. In that state of mind, his friend could say she wanted to step on the Moon and Harry would provide stairs long enough.

"So you're leaving the doors unlocked now? Way to go!" the boy yells and steps into Holland's house, running his eyes through the barely-furnished living room looking for her. "Holls?"

She appears a few minutes later, looking tired. Her messy hair had been put in a bun and she was wearing winter pajamas, even though the day was not cold at all.

"You're alright?" Harry steps closer to her, furrowing his eyebrows. "Sorry I didn't call. Are you sick?"

"You better like me a lot," she says, taking a deep breath. "Because you'll need it after I tell you what I'm about to."

Holland pushes Harry onto the sofa and he is about to remind her he's doing just fine staying away from lady parts when something much more alarming comes out of her mouth: "I'm five months pregnant. Didn't have the guts to tell anyone 'bout it".

"But two months ago you said you _thought_ you were pregnant! You didn't sound sure in the slightest."

"I was just speculating to see what your reaction would be," she tells Harry. "And after you said _'that would be kind of dumb, wouldn't it?'_ I chose not to say a thing."

By the time she told him that, the boy did not think that was a real possibility. He simply didn't manage to picture Holland, so young, off-guard and working at a terrible job being able to raise a child on her own. Thinking about that now, though, he realizes maybe a lot of young, off-guard and working at a terrible job girls raised their kids amazingly, so he shouldn't have called the then supposed-pregnancy _dumb._

"I'm sorry," he says, widening his eyes. "What do we do now? Change our Thursday's programs to visits to the gingercologist?"

"Gynecologist," she corrects him.

"Yeah, that."

"That'd be good," Holland says and rests her hands on her back, as if to illustrate the fact that she couldn't be more pregnant. "I'm not sure who is the father and I don't want to be, but I'm happy."

"I'm happy that you're happy but, look, Holls, that is going to be tough. It's a baby with a little baby-body and baby-needs. What do you think of taking the GED test sooner? This way you can get a better job before your kid is born."

"Harry," she smiles, sitting beside him. Holland rests her hand on her chin and stares at Harry as if he was the most exotic creature to ever exist. "Thank you. That is definitely a great idea."

"Nice," the boy says, holding out one hand so she can low-five it.

"It's a girl. I've already picked her name: Naomi," her eyes light up.

"Nice. Hey, Naomi," the boy says, touching Holland's stomach with the tip of his fingers. "Weren't your belly supposed to be mountain-sized? I didn't even notice you were carrying a little human around."

"I've been wearing baggy shirts," she chuckles. "And, of course, you didn't pay attention. Dudes will be dudes, right?"

He shrugs.

She rests her head on the sofa, mindlessly running her hands over her stomach. She would be on a crazy journey for the rest of her life, but there was no time for second-guessing. The thought of giving that little girl a lot of love just felt right. If it didn't, Holland would've considered abortion.

Although the future looked foggy and messy, Holland felt like eventually she would find her way around with being a mom. Her daughter would grow to be incredibly proud of how good of a mother Holland would turn out to be.

"Do you think you're too young to be someone's godfather?" Holland's voice floats in the air as fragile as a spider web. In a way, that didn't feel like the right offer to someone she met through a volunteer program. Maybe Harry didn't even see her as a friend, let alone someone who could push him a goddaughter.

"Of course not, Holls," Harry smiles and hugs her shoulders.

"Great," she can barely stop the tears from falling down her face. "I was a bit scared to ask, you know?"

"That's alright," he kisses the top of her head. "Your grandpa would be so happy for you. And I love you, Holls. I'm gonna be the best godfather ever, you'll see."

⊹⊹⊹

Harry spends the Friday with Gabby, they both making phone calls every ten minutes. He was unapologetically skipping class (how new), and Gabriela never really gave a care in the world for a missed day of school, so everything was fine. His first task as Naomi's godfather would be planning a baby shower so she would have enough diapers and this type of stuff when she was born, and he had 'till the middle of next day's afternoon to be done with it so Holland could go straight from work to the party.

He had no idea if baby showers were supposed to happen in the fifth month of pregnancy, but, for all that counted, that was how that one would go. He also had no clue about what people usually ate and drank at that kind of thing, so he has to call his mum five times in a roll. After she picks up the phone with a scream of "Sweetie, I'm busy!" instead of "Hello!", the boy decides he'll do whatever comes to mind.

Setting up such a complicated event at his house when his parents had just left to Asia was bad timing.

At some point, Charlotte arrives home from school with Justin and furrows her eyebrows, walking past Harry twirling around and opening his arms to the sound of _Pour Some Sugar on Me_ (and then _Jump_ , the Van Halen song that always reminded Char of videogames) and Gabby stacking up a bunch of diapers.

With a help of Google, Gabby and Harry found out they could make a Pampers cake by holding them together with the yellow ribbon they bought (because pink for girls was too overrated). They also picked up pacifier and yellow duck balloons, and a big sparkling box for gifts. And, of course, a lot of alcohol and different types of Doritos dipping sauce.

To enter the world of baby sugar bottles for cupcakes had been a magical, wonderful time to Harry Styles.

"I'm gonna call Casp and invite him," Harry announces.

"Yessss!" Gabby claps.

"You think I don't sense what's going on between you two?" he points a finger to Gabby.

"Put this Grinch finger of yours down, sir," she shows him her tongue and gets back to hanging the Greenpeace sign on the wall. "I've recently noticed your fingers can probably go further than my future."

"Okay," Harry decides to ignore that. He dials Caspar's number, wondering if he was even in the US.

 **C (in a sleepy voice, even though it's the middle of the afternoon):** hello?

 **H:** my god. it's the middle of the afternoon.

 **C:** _on top of the world?_ are you at a hipster afternoon party again?

 **H:** i'm at the apartment with your wingless angel, a.k.a. gabby gillespie, fixing a baby shower.

 **C:** cool, dude! have you finally gotten pregnant?

 **H (mockingly altering his voice in an attempt to sound like caspar):** cool, dude! have you finally gotten pregnant?

 **C:** idiot. whose baby shower is it?

 **H:** holland! she'll give birth to my goddaughter so buy a nice gift! i'll pick you up tomorrow before 2p.m. love you byyyyye.

 **C:** what the fuck dude what the fuck is this what the fuck. i'll hop on a plane as soon as possible.

"Wingless angel, really?" Gabby lifts one eyebrow, watching Harry dance in response.

He really was on top of the world.

"So like a person?" he smiles even though Gabby misses the reference.

Harry really liked Parks and Rec, too.

⊹⊹⊹

Harry wakes up with Caspar and Gabby screaming in his ears and barely has time to open his eyes properly before he gets pulled out of bed and pushed towards the shower. The two boys have time to chat a little before Harry has to rush to get Holland.

He knows that, if he turns South, he heads to Harlem; if he stays West, he heads to the Queens. The boy tries to take Louis off his mind by driving to Holland's house, where he meets her, in a perfect timing, unlocking the front door in a red-striped waitress uniform. He honks softly, which makes her look backwards.

"My mum got you a ginecologer appointment. Get ready quickly, I'll wait in the car."

"Gynecologist," she laughs and nods.

While Holland and her big almond eyes don't get in the car, Harry mulls over whether he wants to share a big moment such as the baby shower with Louis. He was decided about his willingness to forgive him– in fact, he had already forgiven him –, but he did not know if letting Louis be a part of his life would be a good idea. Maybe they should just restrict the relationship to friendly conversations in the school hallways, but that's not what he's thinking about when he calls Louis.

"Yes," he says after Louis' raspy greeting.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I'll give you another chance."

"Cool," Harry can hear his smile at the other end of the line.

"You're at your place?"

"I am."

"Can I pick you up in a few? I'm throwing a baby shower for my goddaughter. Or Holland, I guess. Is that okay?"

" _Wow._ Okay, sure... What should I wear?"

"A clown suit."

"Ha-ha."

"Whatever you want," Harry laughs.

"Clown suit it is, then."

"Can't wait to see yo--it."

"Are you really coming?"

"I really am."

"Should we... talk about, you know, all that stuff?"

"We'll have plenty of time for that. Let's just hang out today."

"Okay. Okay, cool. See you in a bit."

"See you," Harry takes his time saying it, every syllable lazily pronounced.

He calls Caspar next and lets him know Louis would be coming to the party, so he and Gabby should _not_ act weirdly when the blue-eyed boy walked through the door.

"Can I say 'hi' to him?" Caspar asks.

"Yeah, but no awkward questions."

"Not even one?"

"No, Casp! Save the freak show for Central Park tourists. I really need this to work out, all right?" Harry says, feeling his guts melt with nervousness. Why did he feel like he was about to take Louis on a date?

Holland notices how uneasy Harry is and asks what's up, so he tells her their story, getting a sphinx-y smile in response.

Harry rolls his eyes to her facial expression and pulls over in front of Louis' building, calling him for the second time that day. When he shows up at the gate, Holland elbows Harry's stomach with the strength of a pregnant woman.

"He's so pretty!" she murmurs excitedly seconds before the boy gets in the car with Savannah.

"Hello!" he smiles, putting the aquarium between his legs in the back seat. "I'm Louis."

"I'm Holland," she smiles back.

"You're the one who's pregnant?"

"I am!"

"My mom told a friend that almond oil will work miracles on the stretch marks that will show up in your stomach."

" _Louis!_ " Harry says.

"Oi, chill out. Stretch marks are not a freaking curse word. I'm just trying to help."

Holland can't stop laughing.

"Well, thank you, Louis."

"Why'd you bring the fish?"

"Don't you think your daughter would want to be at your goddaughter's baby shower?"

" _LOUIS!_ " Harry shouts this time and lays his head on the wheel in complete disbelief.

"Hey, I didn't hear a thing!" Holland says but, three minutes after, she and Louis are talking about the party.

 _What have I gotten myself into?_ , Harry thinks.

And then he smiles to himself.

⊹⊹⊹

All of Harry's friends were there. Some of them, like Jack and Zach, were the type of friends he only hung out with when the others were tagging along. Casp and Axel, on the other hand, were friends he could meet at any time, to do anything; or at least it used to be like that with Ax.

Gabby had even invited Rupert, which, at first, made Harry want to strangle her.

"What were you thinking?" he asked her as soon as he saw Rupert.

"I was thinking that he would bring the baby a nice gift, which he did. So stop complaining and go say hi," Gabby rolled her eyes.

"I came in peace, Harry," Rupert caressed Harry's hair lightly to try scaring away the panicked look in his eyes. "I can't believe you're going to be a godfather, _gosh_ , you're gonna smash it!"

They all left Harry very proud and happy. If Holland needed any more encouragement to have the baby, there it was. It was great to see her sat on a sofa talking with the girls, all giggly and glowy.

"That's Naomi's family right here," Caspar said to Holls when he gave her his present – a toy giraffe so big it looked like a dog and more diapers.

When everybody in the room – except for the mummy, of course – is stuffed with alcohol and strawberry ice frosting, the focus of the space goes straight from Naomi to Louis, like a loaded gun pointed right to his forehead. One minute, he's in the kitchen helping Harry squeeze lemons; the other, he's handing Gin Fizz glasses to Harry's friends and getting a series of embarrassing comments in return.

That was, of course, Caspar's fault. As Harry finds out later, he basically gave a speech about Harry and Louis' backstory before they got to the apartment, since he was already drunk then.

"Let's make some room for the lovebirds," Axel says without succeeding to hide the bitterness he felt. Louis looks at Harry as if he hoped that was the first _and_ last comment of that kind they would have to hear.

He ignores Axel and sits on the floor.

"In my opinion, we have to keep all this decoration for when Harry and Louis' babies come to our arms," Josh joins Play Time and Harry makes a disapproval movement with his head, trying to say that any mention to him and Louis being a couple were one-hundred percent forbidden.

" _Guys._ "

"Ohmygod, are they _serious,_ Tommo? Take care of this giant baby. Which is Harry, obviously," Rupert says and touches Louis' shoulder, who lets out an annoyed huff.

"Like you cared," Harry says to himself and rolls his eyes.

"Told ya you look like a big baby," Louis can't help but whisper to Harry. "We're friends, for fuck's sake," he says out loud and everybody laughs.

"No room for shyness here, Louis," Colleen raises one of her eyebrows, looking him in the eyes. "Harry's boys always go through that! Even Rupert and Axel did."

"I'm not one of Harry's _boys,_ I'm his friend. What the hell is wrong with you?" he can't take things easy and relax. The more he gets irritated, the more he amuses Harry's friends.

"He didn't look so shy at that frat party," Axel leans into the sofa, looking at Louis' stiff face and giggling. "Do you remember that, Bear?"

"That's a fair comment, but in the future I'd rather you just fuck off," Louis bites back, one teasing comment away from getting up and leaving.

"Stop it, guys," Harry rolls his eyes. "It's not funny," he glares at Caspar, who points to his empty glass. _Good. Blame it on the alcohol, then,_ Harry thinks.

"Ouch, the claws!" Julian says. "Witty versus sassy. Watch your back, Ax, I'm sure Louis can end you in three seconds."

"Don't help him out, Julian," Bear says. "Or do you need that, Louis? I've heard you don't have what it takes to be with Harry, anyways."

That's enough for Louis. He gets on his feet and storms out the door. When Harry makes mention to follow him, Axel shouts 'hey, Louis, do you rather be top or bottom? 'Cause Harry loves to top!' and Harry tries to shut his mouth, snorting impatiently. Bear tries to engage in their discussion and that's when Harry reaches the apex of his anger.

"Who the hell are you to talk about potential? You're not enough for Gabby nor Colleen."

"Hey, wait a sec," Bear does nothing but laugh. "That's why I'm staying away from them. Didn't Colleen tell you about our deal? They sat me at a coffee shop to _talk about us._ "

"I doubt you can do it," Josh steps in.

"Let's bet, then."

"Okay," Harry says. "If you kiss any of them again, you run 5th Avenue naked."

"I'll get arrested."

"That's your problem," Harry shrugs.

"Yesss!" Julian shouts approvingly and Bear accepts the challenge with a head nod.

"That's because you're pissed? You know we always do that," Bear says to Harry.

"Maybe that's the problem. You _always_ do that and not everyone can actually play along. Did Louis look like he was enjoying it?"

"Harry, fuck off, man," Bear smiles. "You do that too. You did that with Josh's ex-girlfriend and you did that with at least four dudes Colleen has introduced us to."

"They weren't pissed or embarrassed. They were joking, too."

"We meant no harm. He's not pissed because of what we said, he's pissed because of the stuff he can't deal with. So go after him and deal with your guys shit instead of bitching around to your friends, whom you love very much."

"No need to go after him," Gabby says. "Caspar already did."

⊹⊹⊹

Caspar has to follow Louis down almost the entire street until he finally gives in and stops in front of Midtown Comics. A guy lets out an annoyed huff at the boy blocking the very-empty-of-promises door to the store.

"I'm sorry," even though Caspar is drunk, he makes an effort to keep his body standing. "I sort of told everyone who you are."

"Who I am?" Louis crosses his arms over his chest and presses his lips together.

"Yeah, everything about you and Harry kissing and then fighting and then getting into this infinite loop. He's told me a lot about that."

"Good to know," he has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "That's not who I am, though. That's something that fucking happened to me, _with_ me, _because of_ me. But whatever."

"Don't be mad at Harry for talking to me about it."

"I'm not. It's a part of his life, too, he's allowed to tell people about that. I'm just not so sure about you..."

"Have you ever told anyone about you guys?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Well," Caspar shrugs. "You can tell me if you want. I'll erase everything from my mind five minutes later."

"I don't want to, Friendly Ghost, but thank you," the boy laughs drily.

The blond-haired boy stares at him with puppy-eyes.

"Look," Louis clicks his tongue. "I had my chance with Harry, okay? And you and the rest of the world, apparently, know I fucked up. I did. I know that. I don't need anybody reminding me of that or acting like I'm trying too hard to be his role-model boyfriend, 'cause I'm not. I just wanna be a good friend to him. All right?"

"All right," Caspar smiles.

"I apologize for my lack of patience if that's what made you run after me. Do you understand? I apologize, to you, for _that_ moment. I was rude. I don't apologize to you for what I've done to Harry because that's between us; me and him, not Axel, not Bear, not Gabby, not you."

"No, you're right, I'm the one who has to apologize. For exposing you. I was just trying to avoid everyone talking shit when you came to the party, but it kinda backfired," Caspar shrugs. "And you don't have to apologize to me, but don't expect me to stop caring. I care about Harry a lot, I even care about you. I care about you to the point I ran down this street to tell you those guys are actually nice and you don't have to stop hanging out with us because of today."

"I'm not crazy about the idea of hanging out with Harry's friends, but thanks for the offer."

"Man, how odd is it that your hostility can make a heart grow fond of you. I'll really dig this moment we're having after I stop crying inside a bathroom," Caspar smiles. "Claws down, dude. I'm not here to hunt you down."

"It's pretty odd," Louis half-smiles. "I'm taking the subway. See you around... I guess."

"Have you ever gone upstairs? Inside MC?" Caspar ignores his attempt to run away and points to Louis' shirt; it was printed with Superman and the saying IT'S A BIRD, IT'S A PLACE... NO, WAIT, IT'S THAT FLYING FUCK I DON'T GIVE. It sure suited the situation _and_ a person who could not resist comics, so Cas might as well use it in his favor.

"The entrance didn't really catch my eye," he says.

"The inside is very cool," an image of the air ducts and the shelves covered in HQs crosses Caspar's mind and he gestures towards the door. "So what do you say?"

"I guess there's no harm in spending time with the dude who made everyone think I was a shitty little heartless bastard," Louis says and starts going up the stairs.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis' mom breaks his heart again.

Savannah and Yoshi did not get along, which means the cat tried to drag the fish out of the aquarium while Harry was asleep. If he hadn't almost knocked down the bookshelf trying to get to his target and woken up the boy, Louis' baby would be super dead by now.

By the morning, he decides he'll take the pet to Louis' apartment. That would be a good opportunity for him to apologize about the baby shower situation. He crosses the living room feeling like his head is about to blow up and the aquarium almost slips out of his hands while he jumps cushions and crumpled wrapping papers.

He doesn't have the energy required for a change of clothes, so the boy leaves the apartment in grey sweat pants and zombie-drives his way to Harlem. Since misfortune is an early bird, Louis' mother is the one to answer the door and she does so scanning the boy from head to toe. He instantly regrets not spending five seconds of his day putting on a shirt.

"Good morning," he says, controlling the urge to clear his throat. He can't help but glancing away, though, as if there was anything to see there but Natalie's stiff face. "I came here to bring our... I mean, Louis' fish. That he...left at my place."

Even though her eyebrows were naturally arched, she still manages to raise one of them even more.

"Could you please give it to him?" Harry holds out his arms with the aquarium in his hands, trying to stay still instead of running through the hallway, peeking inside the apartment or shrinking so she would not see the tattoo on his stomach.

The funny thing was Harry was sure he would get a Medusa inked on his forearm someday. He'd get that one because he believed in girl power and knew the biggest influences in his life were women. Facing Louis' mother, though, was like feeling a different type of power, as if she was a Disney villain made of flesh and bones. He knew she couldn't be that bad; that she wouldn't jump on his throat or the harsh look on her face was not bound to turn the boy into stone, but it made him nervous anyway. 

He felt shy and exposed while facing the woman, perhaps because exposed was everything he was at the moment. Who even _goes_ to somebody's apartment dressed only in pants? Even if it was Louis answering the door, what did Harry think? That he'd be ready to let him put his eyes on his stomach, chest, trail, the beginning of his hips that insisted on showing on that oversized pants?

"Who should I tell him stepped by?" she finally says something.

"Harry," he babbles hastily. "Harry Styles."

"Right," the woman says and shuts the door without further ado. Harry can finally release the air too scared to get out stuck in his lungs.

She immediately goes to Louis' bedroom and wakes him up. Couldn't wait.

"What is it?" Louis complains, pushing Natalie's hands off his shoulders.

"We have to talk. I'll be in the living room."

She leaves the room and he gets up, shooting the duvet across his tiny bedroom. He, too, was wearing sweatpants only, and that's how he walks to the living room, cursing and rubbing his eyes while his mother fixes a drink for herself.

At ten in the morning.

"Did somebody _die_? What's so urgent, for God's sake?" he sits on the sofa and rests his elbows on his knees, staring at the woman with the same hair color as him.

"Harry Style was here. He came to bring your boys fish. Or your fish, as he set right two seconds later."

" _Styles,_ " Louis corrects her instinctively, trying to show no other reaction to the mention of his name. "So what?"

He knew what was going through Natalie's mind. The day before, he told Caspar he'd never spoken about the kiss to anyone, but that was a lie. At 16, he thought his mother was open-minded and would support him no matter what, but that didn't happen. She freaked out and said rude, stupid things to her son. Louis suspected that, if he hadn't parted ways with Harry himself, she would save no effort to build a Berlin wall between the two boys.

The way he did it was messy because he didn't want to do it. Somehow, though, it was still better than the way Natalie would separate them.

Let's put it this way: the Homophobia Queen had a gay son – or a probably-gay son, he still didn't know. She had a degree on saying absurd things such as "well, but gay boys aren't _boys_ , right? Maybe physically, but they think they're women on the inside". Like, please. Louis didn't feel like a woman. He'd never had. He was a boy who liked boys and that was supposed to be okay, but it wasn't. Natalie never understood him; to be honest, she never even tried to.

Louis would not mind if she couldn't understand his sexuality but still loved him all the same. He wouldn't mind if her reaction to his first kiss on a boy wasn't the worst shit ever, with days passed on aspirins and alcohol.

The only thing Louis could've possibly done was lying to her; he'd said he was mistaken and disgusted and that he'd never do that again.

Everything from then on was such bullshit, starting with the fact that Natalie was so desperate for some straight display from him that she happily harbored the two girlfriends Louis had introduced her to.

Louis felt like laughing every time he thought of how happy his mother was to meet them. It was somehow better to know girls who had no chemistry with him whatsoever than to ever see Harry's face again.

The first one was Ashley. Nowadays, she was just a hook-up and the boy didn't really care about her presence, but when they were dating he could surely say the girl was the worst girlfriend ever. The other one, Monique, seemed to have split personality. By day, she was the sweetest thing; by night, she was possessed by Dionysus or some other freak, drinking her angel-self away and calling him in the middle of the night to pick her up wherever she was.

Two girlfriends were enough. Girls simply weren't for him, at least not the ones he had ever met. He had never dated any guy, but he sure had been with many of them. In a way, he was like Moni, keeping his inner lions on a leash by day but freeing them at night.

One night stands and the taste of more than one mouth in a short space of time didn't complete him, but tamed the aching desire that screamed inside. His only consolation was the possibility of not having to hide anymore, one day. To have enough room to make his own mistakes and run into a version of himself that felt genuine.

There wasn't a girl stuck inside his body, like Natalie would think. There was only himself. He was his own bluebird caged inside his chest.

Louis wondered what would be his father's reaction to the boy's so-called "homosexual phase". According to Natalie, he'd never accept it. His son didn't think much higher than that about him. Despising Louis for something that was not his fault was all Bradley ever did, at the end of the day.

What he needed wasn't a change of mind from Natalie or Bradley. Fuck them. _Fuck. Them._ He needed someone who'd take him for him from the word "go". He'd love his shitty past away, he'd love his shitty parents away, he'd love his shitty behavior away; he'd love his way out of the ordinary bubble. With the right person, people's ignorance would be something to laugh about at the end of the day, laying in the same bed. It hopefully would.

It was such a strange world; it housed all types of people, including the ones who couldn't bear to be housed in the same place as people different than them. It was a billion-year-old, beautiful-as-fuck planet; it had five oceans and everything in between them waiting to be known; there were aliens to be feared and books to be read and rapists to be hated and beers to be drank... and, yet, people still found time to worry about whether a kid was born black or gay or Asian-but-bad-at-Math or a girl who would grow up and send a nude picture to some disrespectful asshole.

Just suck it up already and stop whining like a little baby goat. Fuck!

"He forgot to put on a shirt, apparently. Is that the type of people you're friends with?"

"Apparently," the boy widens his eyes in disdain and shrugs, trying to hide his surprise.

What has gotten into Harry to show up at his door only in his pants?

"Isn't this the boy... This Harry... Haven't you two had a little thing years ago?"

"A little thing?" he arches one of the curvy eyebrows, leans into the sofa and waits for the show.

"You know... You two... You..." she takes a sip of her drink like alcohol could possibly make her disappear and not have to deal with things she, for some reason, thought she had to deal with.

The only thing that actually gets out of sight is Louis' balance.

"I... I... I _what_ , mom? Stick my tongue into his mouth?" he gets on his feet, breathing heavily. "Sat on his lap, bit his lips, caressed his curly hair, _what?_ Get over it, holy fuck."

" _Louis._ "

"I've told you I'm not gay, _I'm not gay_ , how many more times will you ask me that without really saying the words?" his eyes start tearing, so he takes a deep breath. He wouldn't cry in front of her. He wouldn't cry at all.

"Good. Good! That makes me happy, honey."

"That makes you _happy?_ Why? What if I was fucking gay?"

"You don't have to curse," she puts the bony fingers over her temples and inhales shakily.

"Yes, I do. I do, you make me angry and frustrated. Are you bitter to the point of having to find holes to fill in my life? Let the gay people alone! You won't love me any more if I keep being your straight little baby boy, at the end of the day. That doesn't make a difference to you."

"Don't say that."

"I'm done. I'm going back to bed. Thanks for pissing me off."

He grabs Savannah's aquarium off the abandoned dinner table. Louis couldn't remember when was the last time he ate there and not at the kitchen counter or sat on his bed. He gets to his bedroom and throws a little food to Savannah, who was knocking herself against the glass.

"Stressed much? I can relate," he scratches the back of his neck and lowers his body to see her up closer. "Harold didn't feed you right, is that it? Don't take it personally. I'm sure he likes you."

He lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling, hearing the city sounds coming to him. There were so many people out there, and, yet, he had to be stuck inside a house with that freak.

"Or maybe he doesn't. He's a good person, though," Louis pouts and then bites his lips. "I like to think that's what happens to my mom. Like, she's a good person, just not the parent kind."

Louis looks at the fish and chuckles.

"I'll smoke a cig and study. You keep banging on the glass, just don't kill yourself, okay? You'll regret it."

Louis was just thinking he could use some time away from his mother when Harry offered him that. It wasn't the type of thrilling getaway he fantasized about the entire afternoon, half-dead onto his Chemistry books, but it would do.

Apparently, Harry did all he could to try to convince Holland to travel in time and help them with the L.O. assignment, but there was no way to tell how it was like to be a mom without actually having the baby. That's why she suggested the boys spent one or two days in Salisbury, a city in the state of Massachusetts, and looked for her cousin Sophia, mother of two-year-old twins.

Well, that and the fact that she wanted to get them stuck on a car together for hours until they finally stopped playing hard to get.

Harry wants to use the beginning of the week, since he wouldn't have any tests to take, and asks if Louis is available, since he doesn't know what his school schedule is. Luckily, the blue-eyed boy is good to go, even though it means he'd have to skip class.

He packs a pair of jeans, his Superman shirt and a black one, a sweatshirt, underwear, checked Vans, toothbrush and money. That's probably everything he's going to need. Taking some condoms crosses his mind, too, but, _nah,_ of course not. He shouldn't. They shouldn't.

The next day, he and Harry take off at eight in the morning, leaving through Harlem and taking the Interstate 95. It's a hot day of the beginning of June and even though the air conditioner looks like an appropriate choice, they open the windows.

Harry is wearing a fedora hat and his hair is not punished by the violent wind running inside the car like Louis'. The older boy doesn't really mind having his hair messed by it, though.

They're listening to loud music and Harry's got a heavy foot on the gas pedal. So far, so good.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Louis go on a roadtrip. They hug.

"I'm getting hungry," Louis complains, twisting his body and reaching out to Harry's jeans backpack. He opens it very sure of what he's doing. They were on the road for about one hour now.

The boy on the wheel, that gave it in to the sun a few minutes before and put on his Ray-Bans clubmaster, clears his throat audibly.

" _Can I, Harry._ Oh, go on, Lou, you can go through my stuff."

Hearing his nickname again on Harry's lips, especially without being followed by an awkward look, makes the blue-eyed feel like a land conqueror. He almost jokes around about that, impulsively, but then he decides it's better not to say out loud that he noticed that little detail. Verbalizing things, most times, is what ruin them.

Being there together had everything to be awkward, but it seemed like the time in which they were friends was speaking louder than their other moments. They once shared lots of intimacy; at that moment, though, it felt like they always and still did.

He just keeps fishing for something good in the backpack, disappointed by the lack of food. The only things Harry had packed were clothes, a wallet, a notebook and a Polaroid camera. Louis is about to ask him why he brought that when Harry starts singing, as in tune as Keith Jeffery himself, except Harry's voice was thicker and huskier. Lou can't help it but smile.

 _Trojans_ sounded good on his voice and the little show Harry was mindlessly putting on was a lovely thing to see. His jawline was casted; therefore, his teeth were perfect aligned. Louis' little forbidden paradise, though, is the short musical moans that leave Harry's throat. They have another connotation to the older boy, helplessly.

"What?" Harry finally realizes Louis is staring at him like crazy. He shakes his head in response.

"Nothing. I was just thinking how being on the road suits your looks."

"Thank you?" he giggles.

"Sure."

It was not a lie. There was something about this laid-back Harry, pulling his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his forehead and having the bits of his hair that weren't covered by hat dancing around, skin touched by the sun, tattoos showing because of the sleeveless checked shirt; that filled the car with good vibes. It felt as though they were crossing the country to find the end of the rainbow, not like school business. That trip felt like bonding. Like being close.

Without reservation, the boy holds the camera and snaps a picture of Harry chewing on his lower lip absent-mindedly, only one hand on the wheel.

Harry covers his face as soon as the flash goes off, but it's too late. Louis laughs and waits for the paper to dry.

"What did you do that for?"

"I was just testing the camera out," Louis says cynically.

The driver takes a deep breath and cracks his neck, thinking of paybacks. That picture was a low, low move.

"I grant you two more wishes," he says a few minutes later, pointing at a road-sided restaurant. He pulls at the front parking lot, that announces salads, burgers and pancakes, while Louis thanks which and every god he can name and even considers kneeling on the hot pavement as soon as he gets out of the car.

They go inside. The place is steamy hot and noisy. Harry heads to the bathroom, telling Louis to order something for him.

"Can I suggest you our bacon burgers with a side salad?" a young waitress opens a big smile to Louis, sat by himself at a table in the corner.

"I'm almost sure Harry is vegetarian," he murmurs to himself, eyebrows furrowed to the menu. He ends up taking her suggestion and ordering scrambled eggs and green salad for Harry.

They eat it all in less than ten minutes, as if a countdown started as soon as the blonde put the plates on the table. Harry leaves a few dollars with Louis and goes to the car. The older boy frowns upon the vision of Harry on the passenger seat, resting his long legs on the panel.

"What are you doing?" he puts his head into the car and asks Harry, avoiding the driver's seat.

"I'm tired. Ate too much. You take the wheel."

Louis snorts and gets in the car, swallowing hard.

"I'm not a good driver. And, for the record, Brittany the waitress wrote her number down for us."

"For us?"

"Yeah, she said any of us can call her."

Harry laughs.

"How versatile," he says, not really giving a shit. "Let's go."

"I'm serious, Harry, I'm not a good driver. I'm really not."

"Why not?" he doesn't even move, annoyingly smirking at Louis.

"I just don't know how to do it properly," he shrugs.

"But you know the basics, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, guess you could say that" he smiles.

"Great. We'll make a Formula One racer out of you in no time. I'll teach you."

"You'll _teach_ me? Like, _right now?_ "

"Got nothing better to do. You?" the boy widens his smile, making a flourish-y hand movement as encouragement, and turns on the radio. A soundtrack for such glorious moment was needed.

⊹⊹⊹

 _Phew_ to the fact Harry was the one trying to teach Louis how to drive, and not the other way around. While the first one was laughing at the situation, the other was getting annoyed at everything, even himself. If he were Harry, he would already be yelling. Who'd knew changing gears was so freaking confusing?

"You have to decide how strong you wanna hit the pedals, Lou. You're lacking consistency,"

"I'm _trying,_ " he murmurs.

"Do or do not. There is no 'try'," Harry chuckles.

"Okay, Yoda Styles. Wanna do it for me?" he raises his hands, taking them off the wheel, and Harry takes the lead immediately. Louis laughs so much it is hard to concentrate on the road again.

"Not funny," the boy says.

"It was a bit funny," he says, fumbling again when trying to take a Pocky box out of his pocket.

"You won't smoke inside my car," Harry says, glancing at the little package Louis was holding. "Oh. They're not cigarettes."

Louis raises his eyebrows and smiles, putting one biscuit in between his lips and sucking on it.

"Cute little panda."

"What?" Louis asks, distracted.

"On the box. It's cute."

"Ah, yeah," he says and gets distracted again by trying to fish one more biscuit, almost hitting the car ahead of theirs that reduced speed because of the toll.

"Louis! Pay attention to the road!" the boy wearing sunglasses slaps Louis' thigh, slowly recovering from the fact his heart skipped a beat. "Damn. Savannah is your baby, this car is mine."

"Shut up," Louis rolls his eyes. "Savannah is ours. But yeah, sure, I'll be careful."

The heat does not call a truce in the next few ours and Harry slowly falls asleep on the seat, leaving Louis on his own. He was a bad driver anyway, so getting the camera while driving and taking a picture of Harry is nothing to him. His arms were crossed and his head was resting on one shoulder. When this one dries out, though, he doesn't put it in the car console; instead, he sticks it in his pocket so he can keep the picture to himself.

Little by little, everything adds up and makes Louis want to explode in a weird, nice way. Harry's hipster tracks coming out the speakers and the boy himself asleep by Louis' side; it all makes sense. They would work out as good things usually do: overwhelmingly, all of a sudden and beating fast.

⊹⊹⊹

Salisbury was a small seaside city, a total contrast to the boys used to the New York's constant flux of cars, ads and people. Even peace and quiet back there did not feel so steady. Louis concludes he'd make four days tops over there. The beach looked nice, but living among such calmness would get the boy to lose his mind.

Before he wakes Harry up, Louis looks up on the Internet for motels and stuff to do around the town. He parks near the shoreline and puts his feet up the panel, resting for a little bit. Then he drives to Anchor Motel, one of the only ones that didn't have online reviews complaining about bugs on the bed, and parks in front of it.

He thinks of the bucket list he was carrying inside his pocket, something he wished he was competent enough to make come true. There was that beach in town and an amusement park forty minutes away, which made being in Salisbury killing two birds with one stone.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty," Louis shakes Harry's shoulders, who grunts and opens one eye. He lifts his body lazily. "Come on."

Louis leaves Harry in the car to wake up completely and heads to the motel's reception, feeling like he couldn't handle another second inside the vehicle. If something was worth having your butt cheeks aching, driving for hours straight was definitely not it. Wanting his own car was a juvenile, be-like-sheep wish. He wanted it even though he knew him and public transports were made for each other.

An old woman show them around. It looks like she's trying really hard not to stare at the boys every 20 seconds, probably wondering if they were a couple. Perhaps they should get "WE'RE JUST FRIENDS!" shirts made. The first bedroom they enter only has one king-size bed. Louis laughs and exchanges a glance with Harry.

"Perhaps you'd have two of these available?" he asks.

"Oh, sure," she says in a surprised tone of voice, finally coming to the conclusion they weren't boyfriends. The woman looks kind of relieved (or perhaps Louis is just getting a little paranoid over it). _No sinful sex on my motel sheets!_ , he thinks she's thinking. "We have bedrooms with two beds as well."

Okay, so maybe she was just curious. Louis would stop trying to read her mind. His superpowers clearly weren't matured enough yet.

"How much is the night?" Harry asks.

"139 dollars."

"Wow," he exhales through his mouth. "Would you give us a second?"

"Sure. How 'bout you talk outside?" she smiles and guides them through a hallway until they are out in a sea-sight porch. Smart little lady. That place was too cozy to be turned down with no further ado. Plus, the beach was really spellbinding for the boys who rarely went to Coney Island to see some waves.

Harry nods a "thank you" and sits on one of the white wooden chairs, facing the ocean. The salty air stroke their skins and Harry looks at Louis, silently begging for them to stay.

"Okay," Lou takes a deep breath and raises his eyebrows, sitting on a chair beside Harry's. "So sleeping in the car it is. At night, I'll climb a tree and get us some fruits. That," he points to nowhere specifically, "will be our designated weeing spot. Back to the roots, Tarzan."

Harry chuckles. "I don't recall ever sleeping in a car."

"What the hell, Tarz! The city's changed you so much."

"All right, silly," Harry smiles and pets Louis beneath the chin.

"Let's think. What's our plan for the rest of the day?"

"Well, we're going to meet Sophia and the twins at night. I was thinking of taking them out to dinner and, of course, we'll have to pay since it's our invitation."

"Actually, I read there's an amusement park outside the town. Don't you think it would be fun for the kids?"

"Yeah, that's a nice idea. I don't know if Sophia will agree to this, though."

"Come on, she has kids. The girl is probably used to loud and colorful by now."

"Probably. How much is it?"

"36 per person. The kids don't pay."

"We can take the bedroom with two beds. Then we won't have to pay for two. How much is it for each of us?"

"You don't know how to divide 139 by 2?" Louis barks a laugh. "How come have they ever let you be my Math tutor?"

"Shut up, 'course I know. I'm just too lazy to do it."

"Of course you are. About 70 dollars."

"I have 207 left. You?"

"145 that I'll whine like a little bitch for spending."

Harry smiles. "Great. That will do. We'll still have enough for food, gas and toll."

Louis smiles and fist-bumps Harry. They take the bedroom at the end of the hall for the night; two beds, a bathtub and a television they probably would not even turn on. As soon as they pay for it and get their backpacks at the car, the boys lay on their beds and sleep through the rest of the afternoon. Harry has to close the curtains, blocking the light and the sight to the sea.

He's the one who wakes up first, at five, and gets in the cold shower, feeling brand new without all that dry sweat over his body. He rubs a towel on his head and wraps another one around his waist, walking lightly to the bedroom to get his bag. The boy tries not to stare at Louis sleeping with only his jeans on, shaking his head as if he could take that image out of his mind manually.

When Harry sits at the edge of Louis' bed to wake him up, already dressed up and ready to go, the older boy senses Harry's smell way before he even opens his eyes. He smelled like soap and a perfume with strong woody notes; he smelled like man. Louis bites the inner part of his cheeks nervously.

"Do we really have to go now?" he grumbles. His voice was slightly husky because he had just woken up, but it still wasn't as deep as Harry's.

"Yeah. Can you get in the shower and be quick?"

"I don't think I can," Louis says.

He sits up lazily and opens his eyes. The only light in the room comes from the window, filtered by the voile curtains. Outside the sky is divided in two lines; one orange, one blue.

"Um, okay," Harry gets up. "I'll pick Sophia and the boys up and then you. Sounds good?"

"Yeah, see you later."

Meeting Sophia turns out to be an unpleasant experience. Maybe Harry should stop wondering how people were before meeting them, because he usually didn't expect them to be jerks. Holland did mention she was young and pretty, she just forgot to add "rude" to the description.

"Hi!" the dark-haired girl answers the door excitedly and smiles from ear to ear, holding one of the twins. When she sees who is standing at her porch, Sophia does not even try to hide her disappointment. "Oh. I thought it was someone else."

Harry swallows dryly.

"Hi," he smiles and pretends she didn't just say that. "I'm Harry. We spoke on the phone earlier...?"

"Sure, I remember. I'm guessing this is where I offer you my help?" she grimaces. "That's a really stupid school assignment, by the way. Tell your teacher that."

The boy opens an embarrassed smile, intertwining his finger behind his back. She analyzes the large, tall figure before her for a few seconds, from the black Chelsea boots to the wavy long hair covered at the top by a fedora hat.

"Weren't your boyfriend coming with?"

Harry feels his cheeks heating. "No... No! I came with a friend. He's a friend. We're friends."

"Holland said boyfriend," she shrugs. "Well, where is he then?"

The blond little guy in her arms starts fidgeting, meaning to get down to the floor. He then changes his mind and holds out the hands to Harry, grabbing his hair.

"Hi, pal," Harry says and smiles. "My friend is at the motel. I was thinking we could pick him up and then go to Canobie?"

"Canobie?" she raises her eyebrows. "Nathan and Carter are going to love it, but I can't. Maybe tomorrow. I'm not sure. Something came up."

"Uh," the boy clears his throat. "I wasn't planning on staying 'til tomorrow night."

"I'm going out with Will tonight. He has a tight schedule, I'm sorry. You can call me if you want and ask the questions. Do you wanna go to the park, Nathan?" she smiles to the baby and he laughs out loud. Harry widens his eyes at her.

" _What?_ Do you want me to take your children there? Like, by myself?"

"You'll be if your boyfriend, won't you?" she shrugs. Harry feels like face palming himself. For everything. "I could use a break from these kids anyways."

Harry couldn't believe that. Even though she knew he and Louis would be in town exclusively to talk to her, Sophia made other plans. Of course he could've called, but it really seemed like she cared, like asking such personal questions to the girl would be better face to face. Plus, he needed some time with Louis at some place new to get rid of old ghosts.

Whatever she and Will were planning on doing that night, the boy was sure it could be rescheduled. Besides that, she didn't know Harry and Louis. They could easily be serial killers or bad with babies.

"Sophia, hey," the boy says, getting her attention back. "You don't know me. I'm not saying I can't take care of your kids, but don't you think that's kind of inappropriate?"

FFFFFuck. He was pissed off.

"You're friends with Holland, aren't you? She told me you're going to be Naomi's godfather! If she trusts you that much, then so do I."

She pushes her son onto Harry's arms, who barely has enough reflex to hold him in time. He smiles to the little boy, both looking at each other as strangers for a moment, until Nathan goes back to playing with Harry's hair.

"What this?" he asks and slaps the fedora.

"It's a hat! Like Indiana Jones'," he says but then realizes the boy probably has no clue who Indiana Jones is. Harry had no clue either.

"My mommy," the baby points to Sophia.

"Oh, is that your mommy?" Harry asks and parts his lips in fake surprise. "What's your mommy's name?"

"Mommy."

"Wow, that's a beautiful name," Harry chuckles. "And who's that?" he points to the other boy with his free hand. "Is that Carter?"

"His name is Brother," Nathan says and gets shy all of a sudden, hiding onto Harry's neck.

"See? You're good," Sophia smiles. "Nathan is dressed in blue, Carter in white. Keep that in mind. I'll take the safety seats. Come in!"

The girl had an ambiguous way of acting, being nice and kind of sly at the same time. Harry gets in the house, looking around carefully, and says "hi" to the other twin sprawled on the rug playing with colorful plastic dolls.

"Hey, little man."

He lends the car keys to Sophia and asks her if she needs any help, which the girl declines. For a moment, it crosses Harry's mind that she was exactly the type of person to run away in his Mercedes with her boyfriend probably hidden in the bushes and leave her children for Harry to raise, but she's soon back in the house, putting an end to his brief distress.

"I want them back before eleven," she says and closes the door while Harry does the best he can to carry the two children to the car. The fact that Carter is holding a soccer ball doesn't make it any easier for Harry. He puts them in the safety seats, so perplexed with that mother that it leaves him at a loss for words. He hoped _Holland_ didn't turn out to be that kind of mom.

When Louis gets in the car, tickling the twins' bellies and asking for Sophia, there's nothing Harry can do but explain the situation, which leaves the blue-eyed boy madly angry.

"What do you mean she couldn't come? How _couldn't_ she come if this night is all about her?" he yells at Harry and Nathan yells at him, looking angry.

"I think she was going out on a date with her boyfriend. 'S not my fault."

"It's not your fault?" Louis stares at him adamantly. "Don't you have a mouth to explain people how things are supposed to work?"

"What did you want me to say?" he taps on the wheel and takes the exit.

"Uh, that we came all the way to this deadbeat town and are spending a shitload of money just because of her? Does that sound too bad?"

"Louis, I didn't wanna be rude. We can handle spending a few hours with Nathan and Carter – Nathan is in blue, by the way."

"The thing is you never want to be rude, Harry! You realize we went from students doing an assignment to babysitters in a heartbeat?" he huffs. "I see no problem in taking them to the park, but I also see no purpose."

"We can call her tomorrow and ask the questions."

"We could've called her from New Fucking York, Harry, damn! But that wasn't what Mr. Fleming asked us to do."

Harry impatiently lets the air out through his mouth, stepping harder on the gas pedal. So the park was forty minutes away from Salisbury? They would get there in twenty if Louis didn't stop yelling at him.

"Reduce the speed. When we're alone you can be passive-aggressive all you want, but right now is not the time."

Harry reduces the speed but doesn't say a thing.

"Silent treatment, then?" Louis asks.

He rolls his green eyes.

"Okay," Louis rolls his eyes, too, and turns his body to the back seat. "Hey, Carter, watcha got there? Is that a _ball?_ " he uses his voice reserved to kids and dogs. "You're one of mine."

Louis and Carter bond instantly and, when they get to the parking lot, the blue-eyed boy goes around the car and holds the baby quick as a wink.

"Already picked a favorite, huh?" Harry forgets he's supposed to be mad and laughs, taking Nathan with him.

"Yeah, you," Louis says. "You're my favorite baby."

Harry blushes at that like crazy.

They almost regret the amount of money spent on tickets. Paying for stuff always scratched the bottom of Louis' heart, since he was broke most of the time, unlike Harry, with his Mercedes and the gigantic apartment in Chelsea. That feeling doesn't last long for neither of them, though, since Nathan and Carter start looking so freaking happy as soon as they cross the gates.

The bright neon lights resisting the darkness of the sky are, indeed, a delight. Carter and Nathan can only ride Mini Dinos and a spiral slide, so once they're done with it Harry and Louis buy the boys cotton-candy and sit on a bench near the carrousel. There is a roller coaster behind them, too, and Lou can't stop looking at it, pouty-faced.

"Suffering much, kiddo?"

"'S not my fault I like roller coasters so much," he sticks his tongue out at Harry.

"And you say I'm the baby," Harry brings that up again just because there's this part of his self in-between fantasized-flirting and down-to-Earth-friendship that secretly enjoys when Louis calls him 'baby' like that.

He certainly didn't like being called "big baby" when drunk and angry at Louis, just like Louis hated having his height pointed out, but used to love when Harry called him "little one".

Lou doesn't fall for it, though, too distracted by Nathan lightly slapping Harry's face to give the green-eyed boy what he wants.

"Man, look at this kid," he giggles.

"It's not that funny."

"Oh, it is. Don't you agree, Carter?" Louis gets on his feet and steps closer to Harry, holding the baby's hand and closing it. He then motions it repeatedly to Harry's cheek, as if Carter was punching it.

"You're a great influence," Harry says ironically and smiles.

"Come on, I'd be the best dad ever. If I take mine for reference, at least I already know what _not_ to do."

"Why do you say that?" Harry asks even though he remembers well the reason why Louis used to complain so much about his father. It seemed like, to Bradley, the boy had always been invisible. Work before anything and everything else was how the man's world went round, which made Louis completely unhappy 'til he stopped caring – or at least 'til he started being a good faker.

"He just doesn't care," Lou says casually and shrugs. "Plus, I don't need the amount of anxiety my dad would bring into my life right now. I'm almost getting to the point where I tell this friend of mine, Harry, that I'm most probably gay."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Louis half-smiles. "The thought of it is very liberating. I don't want to take you out of my denial-mix and add my father instead."

"Have you ever talked to him about boys instead of girls, though? Maybe he's cool about it," Harry asks carefully. He wanted to ask some questions, but he knew Louis would tell him everything when he felt ready. The last thing Harry wanted was to make Lou uncomfortable – just because it had been easy for the green-eyed boy to come out and accept himself, it did not mean it was the same for everyone.

"Sometimes I wish he was LGBT too, man. Some empathy would come in handy."

"What, you think that's how it works?" Harry says. "Lots of gay people are really judgmental of bisexual people or pansexual people or confused people."

"Really?" Louis wrinkles his nose.

"Really," Harry says.

" _Fu—_ " he starts but soon remembers he's near kids, "—uh crying out loud! You'd expect going through that _sh_ —rimp themselves would make them... you know... nice?"

"Yeah," Harry giggles. "It's a real shrimp. It all comes down to character, at the end of the day."

"Wise words, son."

"Why thanks. And, hey, I really think you should talk to your father. I mean, if you miss him."

"Who doesn't miss a dad?" he snorts. "A functional, complete family is, like, the first human average goal, because if you end up a mess, you have no one to blame but yourself. It's shrimp to see your wellness in someone else's hands. I know you can't relate, but...--"

"I can't relate, but I can understand. And I'm here for you... If you want me to be... Okay?"

Louis nods. Harry hated to see him looking defeated like that. Lou reminded him of Cas so much, always trying to make it seem like he didn't care, when, in reality, a few warming words could make them move mountains for their parents.

The worst type of love was the one you wanted to show but couldn't. It's sort of how Harry feels towards Louis in that very moment, because he wants to hug the blue-eyed boy and say he should allow his heart to want what it wanted without feeling guilty for it.

Maybe Bradley had changed. Louis had to give him a chance to fix everything or finish the damaging. Right now, everything was in this endless process of scarification. The boy should just let it bleed instead.

They share some popcorn and decide to leave. Louis says there's something he has to do before going back to Salisbury and leaves Carter with Harry, walking out of his sight.

"I'll wait in the car," the boy says before Louis disappears completely and carries one baby in each arm back to the Mercedes.

Louis takes ages to do whatever it is that he is doing. In the meantime, both kids fall asleep. Harry leaves his door open and leans into the driver's seat, waiting for Louis' record with his dad to stop playing in his head, but that doesn't happen. He wishes he didn't have to feel like the ultimate fixer of the world for a change.

He didn't want Lou to go through that – he didn't want it for anybody, really. Like, bad parents who leave you on your own too soon. It's finally easy to see things from a new perspective. How the hell are one supposed to not be hurting and pushing people away if their whole life basis go wrong? Parents were supposed to be one's first contact with the world, so what happens if they're bad? Maybe their children become Louis, forging their own strength in an illusory way, with way too much hostility and a fake sense of superiority, deep down so scared of commitment, judgment, getting loose and getting hurt. Harry didn't know if that was exactly what was happening to Louis, but it could be.

Harry wanted Lou to use all of his potential for love, even though he didn't have the easiest personality. He wanted him to find someone or even to be able to go back in time with this realization and _be_ that person. It would be hard to make him feel safe, yes, but he would be willing to try anyway. He felt so guilty, now, for just walking away and letting Louis create this fantasy of happiness for himself.

He jumps out of the car and paces around 'til Louis emerges from afar, carrying a big white teddy bear with both arms. There was an enormous red ribbon around its neck.

"What the hell is that?" Harry asks, laughing.

"Would you open the trunk, please?"

"Okay," he laughs some more.

When Louis finishes setting the teddy bear and closes the compartment, Harry walks towards him without second-guessing and hugs him tight. Louis takes a while to give in, to even realize what was really happening, but he eventually lets himself melt in between Harry's arms and smell. He didn't knew, until then, that he missed their hugs so much.

Harry is much bigger than he ever was and his arms wrap Louis a lot more firmer but, this time, feeling physically small also means feeling emotionally great, special, wide, in-depth, strong; larger than life itself.

Louis hadn't given someone a hug like that in centuries. In fact, he didn't willingly hug anyone in any way for too long. When they break apart, the boy definitely wants more, but he doesn't dare to ask for it.

"Seems like we're never going to be strangers to one another, at the end of the day," Harry says and shrugs, walking to the front door. "But I have to say that your effort to make that happen was plausible."


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An item from Harry's bucket-list gets crossed out.

It is almost 11PM when they park in front of the small white house in Berry Lane. For some reason, Nathan had woken up and started crying, which has a domino effect on Carter. Sophia shows up at her porch before Louis even gets the chance of ringing the bell, acting like a mama bear.

"What's happening?" she takes the babies away from Harry's embrace and gets them inside the house.

"Everything went fine," Harry tries to explain as soon as she gets back to the door. His voice is low. "I think they started crying because we had to wake them up."

"You could've brought them asleep into the house," Sophia raises one eyebrow and folds her arms on her chest.

Harry groans, trying to think of something to say.

"Excuse you," Louis finally steps in, standing right in front of the girl and looking her in the eyes. "We spent the night with your children while you fucked your boyfriend, Sophia, so you might as well thank us instead of making a scene because of five minutes of crying."

"I didn't _ask_ you to take my kids anywhere."

"Oh, is that right?" he raises his eyebrows. "The way I've heard it, you shoved Nathan and Carter onto Harry's arms and set an hour for them to be back to yours. Like you gave a shit."

"Who are you t...--"

"Spare me, love," the boy smiles. "From your words and perhaps from the sight of your tits. Maybe you don't know, but your pajamas aren't covering shit."

"Close your eyes then, you fuck-up," she says while Louis walks back to the car. "You should thank me! Mine are probably the only tits you'll ever see with this crappy attitude!"

"God, I'm sorry," Harry murmurs to her even though he knows she's the one who should apologize. He follows Louis, who slams the car door shut. The green-eyed boy almost complains about that, but things were already heated enough.

"Good! I have no interest in tits whatsoever!" he yells while Harry backs the car up in a rush, trying to run away from the situation. "Plus, even I could have boobs that perky if I didn't breast-fed my kids right!"

Last thing he sees is Sophia giving him the finger.

"Louis, that was so uncalled for," Harry says. "The whole neighborhood must've heard."

That finishes setting Louis off.

"Is that what you're worried about?" he is speaking so loudly Harry has to shut the windows. "Not about the fact that she used you as a nanny? Or that she treat you like an idiot?"

"That's not it...--"

"I heard you apologizing. You should've just been fucking upfront instead. Told her she was acting like an asshole!"

"I was going to, Louis, but not like that."

"You fucking weren't!" the boy punches the dashboard. "Why do you let people trample on you? This girl you don't even know, the boys on the team and God knows who else! Why don't you speak your mind?"

"Louis, _stop._ "

"Why don't you yell at me? Don't you feel like cursing out? I'm certainly getting on your nerves since your jaw line is all clenched and stuff, so go ahead."

Harry doesn't say a thing, so Louis hits the dashboard again.

"STOP!" Harry finally yells back and stops the car abruptly. "Stop yelling at me and stop punching my dashboard. I. Don't. Wanna. Curse. You."

Louis punches the dashboard.

"I already asked you to stop hitting the fucking dashboard."

One more punch.

"Don't curse the dashboard, Harry, curse _me._ I'm the one who's coming for it. I'll give you an easy one: motherfucker."

Harry was so angry his breathing was fast and ragged.

"Come on, call me a dickhead then. I'm waiting," he punches the dashboard again, so hard it makes the radio unclasp from the fit. Harry basically jumps to Louis' seat, pushing his shoulder and screaming at his face.

"Why the fuck would you want me to fucking curse you, you _fucking_ asshole? Did you want me to snap at you so we're finally even for the fucking hell you and the dumbfucks you use to call friends put me through?"

"Yes! _Yes!_ Bring it in, the fury," Louis smiles. Shit. He should probably open the windows. The air inside that car was too hot. And Harry was too close.

"We're already fucking even. Snap out of it, man. I've already told you to go fuck yourself way too many times. The only thing I've got left is to tell you to suck me off. So how 'bout you stop?"

Their lips were so close their breath meet halfway and even though Harry tries really, really hard, his eyes still betray him and glance at Louis' mouth. The inner part of his bottom lip looked slick with saliva, and looking at his beard that up-close made the boy want to run his fingers through it.

Harry ducks his head forward and kisses Louis' forehead torturing slowly. Hurts in both of them.

Then, he gets back to his seat and starts driving again, breathing harshly.

Doing that actually made him feel like new.

Louis looks at Harry's lap to see if...

"Don't you dare," the green-eyed boy says and grabs Louis' chin, lifting his face up. Because, yeah, _that_ was sort of happening and Louis wasn't allowed to look at it.

It would be a hell of an awkward moment if they didn't know already being just friends was bullshit.

After a few minutes, Harry asks with a smile, "So how did I do?"

"Splendid. I'm proud of you," Louis laughs. "You should do this more often, you know? Caring less about other people and more about yourself."

"I do that," he says, even though he knows it's not true.

"No, you don't. It would be cool if you could show me you can care less."

"It would be cool if _you_ could show me you can care more."

"One thing does not rule out the other," Lou shrugs. "I can care more and you can care less. Do what you will, just... Be reckless. Why is it so hard for you?"

"Not everyone is born with your easiness to serve your own needs exclusively."

"You're so wrong, though. I brought something that will make you eat your words," he says and sticks his hand in his pocket, taking out the screwed-up bucket-list he had been keeping for so long. "Do you remember this? Of course you don't, look at your face."

Fact. Harry looks clueless. He recognizes his own scribble on the paper, but Louis doesn't let him see what is written there exactly.

"Your bucket-list. We both wrote one a few weeks after we met, but I bet you lost mine. Didn't you?"

"Maybe?" he bites his lip.

"You reckless little shit," Louis smiles with lips closed. "Well, I kept yours, dude, and we're gonna make all your fifteen-year-old wishes come true. How's that sound?"

"Sounds like a terrible idea. We aren't doing that."

"Oh but we are, Harry. We've just made a deal. You gotta chill, alright? Just relax."

" _Be groovy or leave, man,_ " Harry drags the words out of his mouth slowly, half-closing his eyes. Louis smiles to himself, looking out the window.

Yeah. That.

⊹⊹⊹

There is no one but them at the motel balcony. The only thing between their reclining chairs is a pack of Harry's favorite beer. They wanted them to be colder, but the minibar didn't work that efficiently. They watch the waves flux in silence, the sea being nothing but a pitch-dark stain with foam lines near the sand.

The dawn was only one hour away, but they both felt completely awake, kept full of energy not only by the nap from earlier but by the adrenaline injection they took from all that cursing and shouting. Harry, in specific, could barely stop fidgeting on his chair, asking Louis to see the bucket-list every ten minutes.

"'S not happening, Harry," Lou giggles when Harry asks for the millionth time in a roll. "Did I tell you I lost a piece of the paper? Your list isn't _that_ long, after all."

"How can I not remember what I wrote? Holy shitfuck," he squints, biting his upper lip idly, and takes a sip of his beer.

"The sea breeze leaves your hair _insane_ , with the curls back and everything."

"Really?" Harry smiles. "My hair is kinda going through a phase."

He takes the fedora off and drops his head, finger-combing his hair. For real, it was each day less tamable.

"Give me this," Louis says and reaches out to the black hat, putting it on. "How do I look?"

"Not great," he laughs. "You were sort of made for beanies. Or snapbacks. Hats aren't your thing."

"Whoa, man," Lou throws the hat back at Harry's lap. "I know not everyone looks cute in everything like you, but you could've lied."

"Weren't you saying that I should care less about other people's feelings like, five minutes ago?"

"Geez, Harry," Lou chuckles. "I definitely hate this new you."

" _You do?_ " Harry sounds worried, widening his puppy-eyes to Lou.

"No," Louis knits his eyebrows. "Not at all, man," he reaches out his hand and touches Harry's hair, caressing it for a second. "Okay, let's have some fun."

He finishes his beer in three gulps and takes the paper out of his pocket again, holding it right in front of Harry's eyes just to tease.

"Buckle up, kiddo. This is going to be one wild ride," he makes a voice.

"God."

"Shush. First, you wanted to nurture a polar bear? Quick question: why the fuck, man?"

Harry spits his beer, laughing uncontrollably. "I didn't write that. Lemme see."

"Good try, but no. You did write that. _Nurture_ a polar bear, Jesus Christ," Lou clicks his tongue. "What does that even mean? Did you want to breast feed it?"

"No!" Harry shouts. "I did not."

"If you say so... Well, I did the best I could. Your polar bear is in the trunk. Take care of it."

Harry nods. His face muscles hurt from smiling so hard. He couldn't believe Louis was doing that for him – _with_ him. Like, it was a silly old thing, sure, but still...

"There's a few more things here... Okay, one of them is naught-eeey. We'll have to do most of the things at New York, but I hope you're drunk enough, 'cause you'll have to skinny dip _right now._ "

"What?" Harry shouts, jumping off his chair. "I won't skinny dip."

"Your list, your ruler, Harry. You have to do it."

"I won't."

"Your fifteen-year-old self would be extremely disappointed if he knew how much of a chicken he'd turn into."

"There's no use in trying reverse psychology on me."

"It is what it is, man," Louis says. "I can cross this out, but then you'd be ruining my entire plan."

"I don't wanna ruin your entire plan," he murmurs.

"Then go skinny dipping."

"Can I do it in the bathtub?" Harry smiles.

"You can do it in the sea right in front of your eyes."

"It must be _freezing._ "

"You can't blame me, can you? Blame yourself."

"You're the worst," Harry laughs and kicks Louis' knee lightly. "Just promise me that, if I do that for you, you'll do something for me, too."

"Like what?"

"I don't think I can tell you right now."

"Then I don't think I can agree to it."

"Really, Lou, you gotta trust me on this."

"If you don't get down there in thirty seconds, my answer's gonna be 'no'", he smiles categorically.

" _Fine._ I'll have the time of my life in there. Weep away, loser," he says, sticks his tongue out at Louis and starts running. Louis only goes back to seeing him when Harry's already on the street, walking to the lonely beach.

Harry doesn't even look back as he takes his shirt off, throwing it on the sand. Next, he gets rid of his boots and pants, hesitating for nearly a minute before sliding his underwear down his legs and walking to the water. Louis holds his breath. He really wouldn't mind being Cyclops right now. This way, he either wouldn't see him Harry so well or burn his own guts for wanting to join him.

"Get in the water, man! Get in the water!" Louis shouts from the balcony, wanting to get that over with. Then it hits him:

"No, I'm sorry, baby, just get in."

Harry looks up, getting the reference, and smiles. "Good to know you like it cheesy!"

"Stop yelling!" he yells. "You're going to wake the jungle up!"

"Sorry! We don't wanna upset Kerchak, do we?"

"Not today we don't!"

And that's when they hear a loud 'shhhh!' coming from the depths of Salisbury. Huh.

Harry laughs with his tongue out and runs to the water, diving in before having time to hesitate. Lou thinks Harry will flip him the bird, but he just swims. It looks like he's taking that very seriously. The blue-eyed boy can only imagine how good that must feel, to be immersed in infinity and freedom. Harry gets out of the water soon, though, covering his penis with his hands while shaking with the cold.

Louis does nothing but laugh.

The younger boy goes straight to the bedroom for a hot bath. His pants are sticky, his hair is dripping and the few parts of his body that dried because of the wind are itching from the salt. The experience would be delightful someday, though, he was sure. Maybe when he was 80 he'd refer to that night as one of the best nights of his life.

He hears Louis coming into the bedroom a few minutes later. The boy opens the bathroom, walking backwards, and holds out a beer to Harry.

He leaves the bathroom as soon as he's finished with it and gets in some sweatpants. Louis is lying on his own bed.

"Axel called you a bunch of times while you were taking a bath."

"Oh," Harry says, slightly surprised. "Did you answer him?"

"Should I have?" he presses his lips together, looking annoyed.

Harry raises his eyebrows, grabbing his phone and dwelling on whether he wans to call Axel back or not. It ends up not being necessary, since he also left text messages, just like Bear and Colleen, teasing the boy about the 'romantic trip' with Louis.

"He's just kidding," he says, even though Louis didn't ask and probably didn't want to know. "He said you and I are on a romantic getaway. I shouldn't have talked to Holls about Salisbury in front of them."

Louis nods and takes a sip of his beer.

"I'm hungry. I wonder if there's any place opened. We coul..—"

"I thought you guys had broken up."

"What?"

"You and Axel. I thought you weren't together anymore, I mean, you barely even looked at each other at the baby shower."

"Yeah," Harry furrows his eyebrows. "We did break up."

"Why is he calling you, then?"

"It's a joke," the boy shrugs and gets busy drying his hair with a towel. As if to demonstrate how inconvenient his friends could be, Axel calls again. Louis basically jumps on the phone, answering it before Harry can understand what's happening.

"Wha— _what?_ " Louis says through grit teeth in a worn-out voice and Harry furrows his eyebrows again.

He tries taking his phone off Louis' hands, but the boy gets away from his grip.

"Put it on speaker, then," he complains and Louis does as requested.

"—that? Is it Louis?"

Louis puts a finger over his lips, asking Harry to be quiet.

"Yeah, it's me. Louis," he breathes harshly. "Harry can't answer now, he's busy – oh, _fuck,_ baby, stop for a sec."

Harry looks angry as hell, but there's nothing but silence at the other end of the line and that's what Louis was hoping for.

"Nothing else to say? That's what I thought. Have a good night, Axel."

When he ends the call, Harry is, to say the least, infuriated. He takes the phone back and lays on his bed, not even looking at Louis.

"What, was I not supposed to do it?" he says. "Axel is trying to get back at me for something I didn't even do. He's pissed off because you broke up and must think we're together. If he wants you all to himself, good, but don't drag me into this."

"How the fuck did you come up with this?"

"Believe me, that's it. He's acting like a little child. Tell him to try to get back with you acting his fucking age."

"Wow, I didn't know you understood so much about his behavior. Did you guys share pieces of your souls while you kissed?"

"We didn't just kiss, we fucked," Louis shuts Harry up. The green-eyed boy stares at him with a look in his eyes Louis can't decipher. He then concludes there must be some anger in the mix, 'cause Harry throws his wet towel across the room, lays on his stomach and closes his eyes in an attempt to show he's going to sleep, not talk.

Louis turns the lights off and lays on his own bed. "Didn't he tell you?"

"You both told me you hooked up. I thought it was as in _kissed._ I'm so fucking stupid."

"It was no big deal, we ju...—"

"I didn't ask, pal," Harry cuts him off. "And I'm honestly trying to sleep. If you can't shut the fuck up let me know and I'll sleep by myself in the balcony if I have to."

"Wow, for someone who was holding back on the cursing thing..." Louis laughs. "Are you jealous of Axel, is that it?"

"This has nothing to do with Axel."

"You're jealous of me, then?" he laughs again.

Yes.

"This has nothing to do with you."

"You're jealous of yourself, then? That's narcissistic, not to mention messed-up."

"Shut up, Louis. Just shut up."

They stay in silence for a few minutes, but then Harry decides he doesn't want to keep it all to himself, so he starts talking again.

"It's just that I've been trying to get over the fact that I couldn't have you – not even talk to you – for almost two years and then Axel meets you out of nowhere and gets it all. Not only he ignored the fact that he was with _me_ , but he also made me feel freaking pathetic by showing me that kissing you is not nearly as hard as you made me believe it was. You even slept with him, but when _I_ kissed you it pushed you away forever."

 _God,_ Louis thinks. _How can Harry be so oblivious to what's going on?_

"Don't be so self-centered. Do you want me to tell you your kiss is just as good as his?"

"Yes, that's exactly it," Harry says sarcastically. "You idiot," it's not a joke. Not even in the slightest.

"Your kiss is even better than his. At least I think so. I don't even remember how Axel kisses. You, on the other hand..."

"Leave me alone."

"By the way, your timeline makes no sense. You started dating Rupert a few months after... us."

"That doesn't mean I didn't like you, does it?" he spits out resentfully.

They fall silent again, now for so long Harry starts to drift off to sleep. All that he said before is being played over and over in Louis' head. The blue-eyed boy feels confused, lost about what to do next. He could jump to Harry's bed or keep watching his back illuminated by the yellowish lamp light, letting the past moments fade away so they could go back to trying to be friends.

However, none of these options seem to fit their needs right. They needed some honesty, now, not to rush into a sugarcoating make-out session or whatever.

"Harry?" he calls and Harry is no longer falling asleep.

"Yes?" he answer softly, thinking that was it, that was the moment Louis would finally let out something other than a joke.

"Can you turn off the lamp, please?"

Harry breathes in heavily, reaching out to the bedside lamp and turning it off somewhat violently. The room gets dark and lulled by the waves noise and the harsh breaths of the two boys. They were too tense to pretend breathing inside that room was an easy thing. The walls seemed to be closing in on them.

"Hazza?" he calls again, but this time Harry doesn't answer, even though his eyes are still wide open. It seemed like he would never sleep again.

Louis waits a few seconds.

Nothing.

Heart in his mouth, raw nervousness. Louis could barely believe he was thinking of the things he was thinking.

"Well, fuck you. No one falls asleep that quickly. I just... I fucking love you, man."

Silence.

"I _love_ you," he says again, letting the words dig on his own chest, sink in his stomach ties. "I wouldn't be able to let you go even if I wanted to. I love you just like I did when I was sixteen. Even more. I've never hated you. Ever. Not even for a second."

That was the right thing to do: let Harry know how he felt before having a chance to ruin things again, which was not that hard since they fought all the freaking time. He didn't want blissful or perfect, but he wanted honest. So, yeah. There it was: _I love you._ That's how he felt in that moment, how he had been feeling for so long. Even with distance, Louis never got rid of the special parts in his system that seemed to surface only when he met Harry, the ones that burned with affection and admiration for the boy that had never been anything but luminous; brilliant at everything. He meant so much to Louis; his eyes lit up with innocence were the anchor that pulled him back to the ground at his worst and made him feel glad to be alive at his best.

The person pretending to be asleep next to him was the only one that he wouldn't bear to lose. Maybe deep down he knew he'd have countless chances with Harry, all he needed to do was stopping taking them for granted. Or maybe that was his messy way of trying to make peace with himself before making peace with Harry. Or maybe he was just this monumental idiot. Anyway, Harry was the family he had chosen; the home he claimed to want, Louis had already found to himself.

"Shit, I love you so much," he whispers. Harry can still hear it.

Silence.

Silence, silence.

Silencesilencesilence.

"I love you too, little one," Harry struggles to make his vocal chords work, body melting into the mattress and head spinning. He's smiling so embarrassingly big that it makes him glad the lights are off. "All of lots."

He's also glad he had Louis back like nothing had ever gotten in between them. They'd make it work because, as it was said loud and clear, they loved each other and that's what people who love each other do: they find a way out, slay dragons, move some fucking mountains, work it out.

People who love each other just try hard enough.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry holds Louis' hand.

The morning after, Harry wakes up and Louis is not in the bedroom anymore. Only when he gets out of the motel he sees him playing soccer by himself on the beach sand. With Carter's ball. The blue-eyed boy runs to the Mercedes when he realizes what Harry's about to do.

"I know you're going to talk to her!" he shouts but Harry starts driving anyway. Louis puts his middle fingers up. "Okay, go on then! You're such a good person! I'm touched!"

"Go pack," Harry says and heads to Berry Lane, laughing to himself.

That day felt so good he didn't really care if Sophia was going to punch him in the face. He just wanted to make sure he did what he could for the twins.

He rings the bell, expecting the worst, but she lets him in with no further ado. They have a conversation even though Harry feels he's a common denominator; Sophia looks like she was waiting to talk to anybody willing to listen. So, basically, her careless way of being a mom was an attempt of grabbing on to what was left of her teenage years. Harry had no right to ask her not to be a bitch to her kids, but he does so anyway. The world was already overcrowded with broken hearts.

He had no idea if any of his words got under her skin, but at least she did not yell at him. She even offered him a cup of coffee.

Harry got homesick very easily, so it's relieving to be back at the apartment that afternoon. His best friend is still there, much for his surprise. When he walks through the door, Char and Cas are being their usual selves, lying on the couch and watching TV. Harry jumps on his sister first, then Casp, kissing his face and pinching his stomach.

"Make some room, donut," he asks, pushing Caspar's body to one side of the black sofa. "What are you watching?"

"What does it look like?" Casp says, kicking Harry's knee repeatedly.

"It's Top Chef, now shut up," Charlotte says. "By the way, we should go out to dinner later."

"Stop kicking me, you underworld mouse," Harry elbows Casp, who bursts into laugh. Charlotte tells them to shut up again, but the boys keep being noisy, so she mutes the TV and grabs the gummy bear bowl from the table.

"How was the trip, Hare?" she asks, filling her mouth with candy.

Harry doesn't listen to her, too busy grabbing his best friend's hair.

"Stop fucking pushing me. I'll give you goat horns since you're white like one."

"Goats have no horns," he says. "Do them, Char?"

"They actually do, bud," she smiles. "And you really are beyond pale."

"I'm taking the Casper the Friendly Ghost to a whole new level."

"Don't talk about yourself like that!" Harry objectifies.

"Chill, man. I'm not offended by my own joke."

"It was funny," Charlotte smiles.

They calm down gradually and Char asks about the trip again.

"It was okay. Had to use my talent to watch kids."

"Oh, _right_ ," Cas makes fun of him.

"Don't be sarcastic. I've been watching you for ten years."

"Thanks so much."

"Thank me by getting out of my bed. Bet you peed on it."

"You bet correctly," Casp rolls his eyes.

"I just hope you didn't have sex with Gabby on it."

"I wouldn't dare to put my bare ass over your germs."

"What's wrong with you?" Charlotte laughs, standing up and adjusting her shorts. It had DELICIOUS printed across the back.

"What's wrong with _you?_ " Harry says and slaps her bum. She yells.

"What the hell, man," she frowns. "You get too physical when you're happy."

The apartment is a mess. The siblings couldn't even remember when was the last time they swap the place, taking advantage of their parents inability to scold them for being too careless. It looks like Cas let drunken dinosaurs get in Harry's room, because there's clothes everywhere, the books Yoshi knocked down are still on the floor, the notebook is on and the duvet is thrown over the velvet chair.

They turn on the radio and Harry thinks of how much the neighbors probably hated them. That stops being an issue as soon as Bruce Springsteen starts singing, though. The girls and Axel get there half an hour later and Harry does his best to ignore the questions about Louis. He wasn't going down on Lou when Axel called, but he also didn't care if Axel thought he was. God knows he would, if given the chance.

He feels weird, as if there's someone missing in that moment. Even after spending more than an entire day with Louis – which was quite a lot of progress for them –, he still sort of missed him. Harry allows himself to wonder what is Lou up to. He longed for the day his friends would stop being so annoying and they all could hang out. They probably seemed like real awful people to Louis and others who couldn't understand their dynamics.

He's sweeping the hallway when Axel leans into a wall and starts watching him.

" _Okay,_ psycho," Harry murmurs and smiles.

Ax nods.

"My God, man, don't you get scared of yourself?"

He laughs.

"I was thinking... Imagine how much easier life would be if humans had elastic arms?"

"Relevant."

"For real, my arms are sore. I wouldn't have this kind of problem if they were elastic."

"Good observation."

"I won't talk about Lou, if that's what you're after."

"Are you keeping secrets, now?"

"Why wouldn't I? It doesn't concern you," Harry says. "Just treat him right, man, regardless of where we - me and him - stand."

"Deal."

"He's really trying."

"Okay."

"He's one of my best friends. He will fit in if you give him the space to."

"I know. He's fun, at least when he's drunk," Axel shrugs. "That whole thing was just a proper initiation."

"No, you guys went too far. And I'd really appreciate it if you stopped mentioning the day you and him... You know."

"Okay, sorry, I'll leave your bro alone."

"He's not my bro," Harry points a finger at Axel and leaves, going downstairs. God, couldn't he just stop making things that uncomfortable? The green-eyed boy was starting to think being with him at all was a mistake.

When he gets to the living room, Colleen and Gabby are in the middle of an argument about some goddamn irrelevant thing involving Louis. The boy snorts audibly and decides to take a shower. When he gets to his bedroom, Caspar is in there with earphones on. Harry locks the door and motions to Casp, asking him to take them off.

"Oy," he says. "You okay?"

"Weren't you downstairs?"

"No. I was hiding in here and letting you and Char think I was helping to clean."

"Is that so," Harry squints. "Well, whatever. I got downstairs and Colleen and Gabby were arguing," he lowers his voice. "Colleen was like, _Harry shouldn't be with Louis!_ and Gabby was like, _stop, he should be with whoever he wants._ "

"She says that, but if you start dating Louis she'll be the first one to go against it," Cas says.

"I know," Harry says. "Fuck, man, when did they turn into my mom? I didn't ask them to watch over me like I'm some freaking infant."

"You bring that out on people, though," Casp laughs. "Maybe you should start being rude. When Gabby say 'good morning' you go like 'yeah, right, you fucking undeveloped alien'."

"That's such a nice advice. Thanks."

"Anytime, bro."

"I'm going out. See you later?"

He puts some jeans on and rolls a grey long-sleeved shirt to his elbows, storming out the front door. He wasn't trying to say "screw you", like, forever, but screw his friends for now.

The boy gets on a bus to Harlem, sits down, rests his head on a window and start texting the boy he was about to see.

 **19:17, H:** Hiii, Lou.

 **19:22, L:** Hi ! :)

 **19:22, H:** Wanna hear something cool?

 **19:25, L:** Why not

 **19:26, H:** Buses shake.

 **19:26, H:** Especially this one I'm taking to HARLEM!!!

 **19:30, L:** :) coming to see me?

 **19:30, L:** I hope not

 **19:32, H:** You're kidding, right?

 **19:32, L:** Never been more serious in my entire life.

 **19:33, L:** Haha !

 **19:33, L:** Harry ? I sent haha. I am kidding

 **19:40, L:** Too late to fake your death now

 **19:41, L:** Who has kneeled has to... you know.

**19:42, L:** Pray. 

**19:45, L:** Are you coming or not crybaby ?

 **19:46, H:** Sorry, I'm almost there. Spaced out 'cause music.

 **19:46, H:** Earphones may or may not be the highlight of human race. Rrrright?

 **19:48, L:** Yea. We should leave a letter to future invaders. Human race: fucked everything up (invented earphones, though)

 **19:48, L:** What were you listening to?

 **19:48, L:** Btw we should go to a record store so I can introduce you to twenty one pilots

 **19:48, L:** And you can learn about one more inch of my tar black soul

 **19:49, H:** Before you fully evolve to Lana Del Rey I should warn you I don't wanna be your daddy. Nor I want you to be mine.

 **19:49, H:** But sure we can go

 **19:49, L:** Well that escalated quickly

 **19:50, H:** That was a joke. I really don't, though. And I was listening to

 **19:50, H:** I WONT BE HASTY

 **19:50, H:** I'LL GIVE YOU A TRY

 **19:50, H:** IF YOU REALLY BUG ME THEN I'LL SAY GOODBYE YOOOOOOOO

 **20:00, L:** I wanna huhhh ! Where are you ?

 **20:01, H:** Almost there. Wear something pretty ;)

 **20:01, S:** I'll give it a thought

 **20:05, H:** Just kidding. Wear a garbage bag if you want, just bring my list.

 **20:06, L:** Ive

 **20:06, L:** Created

 **20:06, L:** A

 **20:06, L:** Monster

 **20:06, L:** SHIT !!

 **20:10, H:** Okaaay, I'm kinda lost here.

 **20:10, H:** I think I got off the wrong stop

 **20:15, H:** Sure, no need to worry!! I'll find my way some day this week.

 **20:17, L:** I can see you. You're on my street, you idiot. I'm co

 **20:18, L:** Shit. Did you see that ?

 **20:18, L:** I hit a street light ! Haha !

 **20:19, L:** It wasnt funny, actually

 **20:20, H:** Shut up and come.

"Keep walking," Louis says as he links their little fingers together and pushes Harry forward 'til the subway entrance. They take line 4 to Brooklyn, and Lou sits down as Harry stands. He proceeds to start taking his feet off the ground by holding the bars, as if no one could see what he was doing.

"What are you looking at?" he asks softly, looking at Lou's confused expression.

"You know people can tell you're playing, uh, monkey, right?"

"No? I'm barely moving."

"Just making sure."

"What are we going to do tonight?"

"You'll see."

"Are we stealing a car?" Harry raises his eyebrows, eyes as bright as Christmas lights.

"Is that a serious question?"

"Sounds like something my fifteen-year-old self would like to do," he shrugs.

"Oh, yeah. Because you suddenly morphed from a life of the party teenager into an A student strangely attached to human beings."

"Good point."

"Thanks."

"I have _so_ many pictures of us back then. We had funny hair."

"I remember," Louis smiles. "Our fringes! We should bring them back."

"You already have one, though. It just doesn't cover your whole forehead like before," Harry says. "Looks good on you."

"Why thank you, Haz," Lou says. "I've been thinking of shaving the sides of my head. I think they call it side-cut?"

They keep talking and Harry keeps engaged in his little fidgety gestures the entire ride, taking his feet off the ground and then rubbing the sole of his boots on it, chewing on his lips, touching his hair, touching Louis'. It didn't look soft, but it was. Bunny-soft.

When they leave the subway, Lou lights a cigarette, which immediately makes Harry pull an unpleased face.

"I'm sorry, love, but I don't really care," he says, smiling with his lips closed to the boy walking by his side. He takes his hand up the back of Harry's neck, caressing the end of his hair quickly.

"I'm not going to say that's bad for your health."

"What? Touching you?" Louis smirks.

"Nah, that's extremely beneficial," Harry smiles, looking down. "I meant smoking."

"Of course you did."

"Nor will I say it's been scientifically proven that smoking doesn't reduce stress, so it can't be used as an excuse."

"Good, I'm glad."

Harry rolls his eyes.

"Your lungs will turn grey, though," he says. "Bad choice of color to carry inside yourself."

"And why is that?"

"It's just too indecisive. Like, an inbetweener. I'd really appreciate it if you took a side."

Louis doesn't understand a single thing from what Harry had just said, so he nods. "Sure. Whatever you want, man."

"Step out of grey, Lou," Harry smiles.

_Step out of grey and quit smoking. Step out of grey and kiss me already instead of eating me up with your eyes. Step out of grey and only use one voice tone to tell me you love me so I can't understand it wrong. Step out of grey and be completely honest with me, 'cause I have no clue what to do next. I want to kiss you, but would you let me?_

"I'll put this one out."

"This one pack?" Harry asks.

"This one cig. We can talk about this later, all right?" the boy rolls his eyes, taking a deep drag on the cigarette. He then throws it on the floor and steps on it.

"How 'bout a trashcan?"

Louis rolls his eyes again and picks the cigarette off the floor, throwing it on the Designated Place.

"You're so annoying," he lightly pushes Harry's side with his shoulder and smiles, looking down.

They walk to the pedestrian path of Brooklyn Bridge. Getting there was supposed to be a quick thing, but it actually takes a long time for Harry to do this with Louis. He has to slow down all the time, otherwise they'll get too close and the green-eyed boy will end up holding Lou's hand.

Harry craves their fingers intertwined so badly his chest feels heavy. By the way, would that be _their_ way of holding hands? Or, if he reached out to Louis, they would end up doing it differently?

That feels like a big deal. Of course Harry had held hands with people before, but wanting to do with Louis felt like a confirmation... of something. For the outsiders. For the Universe. For himself.

Holy shit.

Maybe he was in love with him.

 _Maybe I'm in love with you_ , Harry thinks, looking at the back of Louis' neck. Saying it, even in his own head, feels daring. Dangerous. Like if he took out the _maybe_ the world would never go back to what it was before those two seconds. Actually being in love with his ex-boyfriend never felt so ravishing as the mere possibility of being in love with Louis. Ever.

Looking at the back of Louis' neck, that was still a possibility.

But when they get to the walkway and the older boy gets happier, when he turns around and smiles at Harry, lit-up blue-eyes, hollow cheeks, thin beard Harry could almost feel burning his upper lip and the only other particles that matter, he is so sure. There is no 'maybe'. There never was.

So he holds his hand.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is crowned King of the wild things.

Harry's heart races so furiously he is afraid Louis can feel it on the fingertips.

Holding Lou's hand is like being sucked into this vortex that can only liquefy if the center of it dares to do so. Which he does. Like, only a few seconds later, much to Harry displeasure.

If someone looked close enough, they would see Harry mouthing a "no what the fuck" when Lou let go of his hand.

"Harold, people can... You know. _See_ ," Louis says between his teeth.

The green-eyed boy smiles. "Lou..." he looks at him like, for the first time, Lou is the naïve one. "New York doesn't care."

Louis looks confused at first, but then he puzzles it all together. New York really didn't care. Not even one bit. Maybe some people in New York, but not the city as a whole. He can't tell them apart, though, so he decides all humans walking the Brooklyn Bridge right in that moment didn't care. Lou would throw them in the river if they dared to give a shit.

"Well, in that case," he says and holds Harry's hand again.

Harry likes how Louis does it, fitting his palm on the back of Harry's hand and intertwining their fingers. It'd be cool if they did it more often. Like, everyday. All the time. The boy wouldn't mind.

"So?" Harry asks when Lou stops at the middle of the walkway. He rests one side of his body on the railing and looks down at the river. The wind was blowing like crazy.

"You wanted to go to Trevi Fountain and throw a coin in there."

"Being here makes so much sense, then," the boy laughs, rubbing his thumb on Louis' wrist.

"Use your imagination," Lou rolls his eyes, sticks his free hand into one pocket and holds out a bunch of coins. "Go. Live wild, flower child."

Harry smiles at Louis. Like, real big. "I don't want a thing," he shrugs. "Right now, I've got everything."

"Lame," Louis wrinkles his nose. "Say you want me to get a car."

"And be responsible for such a chaotic addition to the world? No."

"Please," Lou puffs. "Just admit it you like driving me around."

"I do like it."

"You may even like it _a lot._ "

"Perhaps I even love it, Tomlinson," Harry says, wanting to pull him closer. If they kept looking each other in the eyes like that, he might as well freaking do it. "Okay... Give me a coin."

He turns to the river and throws one in there. "I want one of my favorite bands to come to town."

"That's actually a pretty good wish, man," Louis says.

"I'm done," Harry says. "Don't want anything else."

He really couldn't think of something he wanted badly in that very moment. Maybe some Japanese takeout, a little green tea and a kiss from Louis, but those were things he was willing to earn, take with his very own hands. It was enough just to know his best friends were in the same town and his parents were somewhere having fun, as well as him and Louis.

"Okay, let me see," Louis says, going through the items of the list again. He already knew all of them by heart, but seeing the glimpse of curiosity in Harry's green eyes every time he held that piece of paper would never get old. Following the order, next thing was going to strip-tease club, but Louis had already decided to ignore it 'til he found a way to deal with the idea of picturing some random dude giving Harry a lap dance. He wouldn't talk his way into some of those clubs to see such thing.

Perhaps he'd have to do it himself.

"Because _Where the Wild Things Are_ is your favorite movie, you wanted to spend a day being kind of the wild things, like Max, except with no lies."

"Wow," Harry laughs. "What a creative little brat."

"Well, I don't know where the wild things are, but I brought you some stuff."

He steps closer to Harry and asks him not to move. Louis puts a beanie with pointy cat ears on Harry's head, smiling fondly at him. He then unfolds a Burger King paper crown and puts it on top of the hat.

"I know you don't eat meat, so sorry about that. At least they sell... I don't know, French fries and onion rings?"

Harry nods, smiling.

At last, Louis' arms circle Harry's waist so he can hook a costume-y red fox tail to a belt loop in the back of his jeans. The green-eyed boy giggles, letting his newest acquired limb slip through his fingers. He is still looking at Louis right into his bright blue irises.

"So I'm king, now?" he asks softly.

"You are," Lou answers just as low.

"A king gets to do what he wants," he says and takes one step forward, getting so close to Louis he has to look up at Harry.

"I know," Lou says under his breath, almost choking on his words, and his eyes widen in bewilderment when he feels Harry's cold wet lips on his, not hesitant at all.

Everything inside his head gives a full spin and his legs weaken, which isn't a problem, because Harry holds him by the waist with one arm and cups his face with the free hand. Parts of him want to make sure Louis won't run away. He doesn't want to, though. Lou finally lets his eyelids shut and his body melt in between the arms of the taller boy; he does so while Harry parts his lips open with his warm tongue, their kiss not going much further than messiness and rash breaths.

Kissing Louis puts Harry's universe upside-down, and he almost can't help the greedy, eager way he is doing it. All his bottled up emotions were out now. Maybe that was the wild thing. Maybe those inconvenient fireworks were the thing heating up his body while he sucked Lou's thin lip between his own as if he wanted pieces of it to himself. Would Harry ever get enough of how Louis' skin felt on his fingerprints? God, he hoped not.

They break the kiss, resting their foreheads together while breathing heavily. Harry cups one of Louis' butt cheeks and his huge hand covers it entirely, which makes the younger one giggle, kind of turning his face until his cheek is against Louis' lips.

Lou gives him a kiss there. He kisses his chin, the forehead, tip of the nose. And then he smiles. He smiles even though he is dead scared. Harry smiles, too, giving Louis a peck on the lips.

"I love your lips so much," Louis breathes out.

"Say it again," Harry presses his smile against Louis' cupid bow and French-kisses him one more time.

"I fucking love them."

Harry blinks lingeringly, which reminds Louis of Marie from the Aristocats. "I think we should race each other to the park, now."

"If I had lost my mind, sure. My lungs can't take it. Nor can anything else, really."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Harry says ironically, putting his hand over his chest. "Too bad I'm the king and you have to do as I say."

"That's abuse of power, Your Highness. Do you want me dead right when we just got to the good part? With all the kissing and stuff?"

"It will make you feel alive, baby blue eyes. Let's go," Harry smiles and opens his arms before turning to the other side of the bridge, sprinting off without waiting for the other one. That is how Louis gets a sight of the most beautiful boy in town running as fast as a rocket with a tail hanging from his jeans.

And he loved him so much.

⊹⊹⊹

"Holy crap, I got to think of some good last words real quick!" Louis puffs, trying to catch his breath, and throws himself on the grass. "I wanna sound adorable. _Harry, you can keep Savannah._ "

"I kinda have to, according to Mr. Fleming's parent agreement."

"Don't you have a heart?"

From where they were, the boys could see the bridge's silhouette with several points of light along it, and Lou would be grateful for being there as soon as he recovered from his near-death experience, Harry could bet.

"I won't say the cigarettes are probably stealing your physical skills."

"Here we go again. I'm just not usually ready for runs."

"Louis," Harry furrows his eyebrows.

"What?"

"You play soccer," he shakes his head, sitting by Lou on the grass.

"Well, I wasn't mentally prepared for this one."

"How do you plan on getting into a college if you can't even run this distance?" he lets out, genuinely worried.

"Oh, yeah, man, kill the mood. Stab it in the freaking eye. College is all I've been meaning to talk about on our first..." he stops himself and clears his throat. "... uh, time... at Brooklyn Bridge."

Harry laughs, deciding to ignore that. "I'm sorry. I just want you to do well."

"Have you ever seen me playing?" Lou looks at Harry.

"Yeah."

"So you know I'm going to do well," he winks, saying such thing just so Harry can stop worrying. He knew things could go wrong. The whole thing was killing him, that is, not being sure if he was going to make it or not. He wish he could just hand the controller to a friend who knew how to make it to the next level better than he did.

"You think you're patient enough to treat people right? I mean, as a psychologist. Won't you punch them after a few minutes of talking?"

"No, 'cause I'll be chatting with the kids. Kids are cool. I'll handle it well," he says, pulling Harry closer so he can rest his head on Lou's thighs, who spends most part of the time, then, watching the way Harry's lips move when he talks.

"Can psychologists be arrested if they yell at their patients?"

"I think so."

"Cool," Harry smiles. "You'd totally go to jail."

"Yeah, and maybe I'd come back with just as many prison tats as you," Louis looks down at Harry's forearm, to how sloppy-traced some of his tattoos were. He kind of liked them a lot. "Are those stick 'n pokes?"

"Yeah, some of them. I did get a few at tattoo parlors and asked them to make the drawings look like stick 'n pokes," he smiles. "I like those. Do you?"

"They are interesting choices," he teases.

"They are interesting choices," Harry twists his voice and makes fun of him just like he loved doing with Casp. "C'mon. Say you love 'em already."

"Man, I'm never letting you be king again," the boy sort of grimaces at Harry, putting his tongue between his teeth.

They stay in silence for a few moments, Louis distractedly caressing Harry's hair, and then the most unlikely thing happens. Louis bursts out laughing. Nolan, this boy he was seeing two, maybe three weeks ago, is walking towards the boys on the grass, eyebrows furrowed at Louis.

"Hi," he says when he gets close enough, folding his arms on his chest. "Hi, Louis."

Louis still had Nolan's texts on his phone, asking him to call him back too many times in a roll. He had ignored them all. He always did.

"What's up, Nolan?"

Harry looks up to the boy standing, dressed in a Slipknot shirt and bleached jeans. He was cute, but the lip piercing wasn't really Harry's thing. He waves to the boy, still resting his head on Louis' lap, and the stranger waves back and stares at Harry for a while, looking confused.

Nolan was not planning on making a scene, but he did wonder what was Louis doing there and who was the boy with him. He remembered very clearly what Louis had said about not being in a relationship and now he realizes how foolish it was to believe him. The fact that the blue-eyed boy could never make time for Nolan or even call him spoke for itself.

Wow. Louis was such a liar.

"Hello...?" he asks and holds back a smile. That was funny.

"I just... It's nice to see you," he sticks his hands in his pockets and Louis nods. "Have... uh... a nice night... with your boyfriend."

"Thanks, Nolan," he smiles lightly now. "You too."

As soon as he leaves, Louis starts laughing again.

"Who was that?" Harry asks.

"Just a guy I was seeing," he shrugs, not really wanting to talk about that. It meant nothing.

Harry furrows his eyebrows, watching the 'guy Louis was seeing' walk away. He was smoking a cigarette, now. Didn't look very pleased.

"I think he's upset. Is that the kind of guy you usually see?"

"What do you mean?"

"He looks quite... punk? I don't know."

"He doesn't look very punk," Lou snorts dismissively. "He does look like an underdog, though."

"He looks cool," Harry wrinkles his nose. "Is that what you go for? Boys who look cool and up to no good?"

"Yeah, they're easier to deal with," he shrugs once again, trying to process the look on Harry's face. Was it _that_ bad?

"Easy to deal with?" he jumps, sounding like he was one step away from freaking out. "Do you _want_ easy? What does that even mean?"

"I don't now, Harry. People who don't mind being an one-night stand, that's what I was looking for. It works."

"I can't be an one-night stand," he says under his breath, widening his eyes.

"Hey, who said I want you to be that?" Louis laughs. "Are you honestly comparing us to anything else in my life? Don't do that."

"Really?"

"Really, man. I'm not in a movie. I don't know how to turn Saturday night's cheap booze and small talk into romance. But this we have is nothing like ordinary love, you know what I mean?"

"I think so," Harry says.

"Nah, you know so. Therefore, don't fucking worry," Lou smiles at him and, somehow (or in all ways) it is reassuringly. It's honest, heartwarming and sends his guts back into where they belonged.

Lou moves onto Harry and kisses his lips one more time. In a strange way, his entire body screams his apologies for always knowing the things he had just said, but taking too long to show them. He wish he'd never hurt him, but he did and there was nothing he could do about that now. So he'd have to stop looking back.

Louis didn't really deserve Harry, but there they were, so he would make things worth it this time. He'd be better than he was before 'cause he'd be sure.

People could feel lucky all the time, but no one would ever be as lucky as Lou, who earned free pass to stay beside the coolest, kiss his lips, talk for hours.

⊹⊹⊹

It was past midnight now and they were sat at a table outside Florent, a dark, cozy 24h a few blocks away from Harry's apartment. Peeking inside, the orange lights hanging from the ceiling made it look like it was raining fire inside the little restaurant. Lou orders burgers and fries and Harry a vegetarian chili, which makes the blue-eyed boy pull the menu from his hands.

"Vegetarian chili," he reads aloud, squinting at the words. "Sour sauce, cheese, onions, tomatoes and tortillas. What _are_ you, a rabbit?"

"I'm pretty sure rabbits don't eat cheese."

"They're missing out."

He hums the lyrics to Techno Fan playing from inside the place. Harry grabs a straw and starts biting the tip of it, so Lou mindlessly looks at him fondly with a Mona Lisa smile frozen on his lips while he lowers his chin.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, right?"

"What?"

"Cheese," Harry smiles, as if.

"Have you ev—"

"Don't yo—sorry, go on."

"Have you ever tried dipping French fries in ice-cream?"

"Ew!"

"Nah-ah, Hazza. It's not an 'ew' at all. It's good. Have you tried it or not?"

"No," Harry says. "Sounds disgusting. How come does one even make the decision of trying ice-cream with fries?"

"You'd have to live life in the fast lane to understand this, kid," Lou mocks. "Seriously, though, try it. I'll like you more if you take this one for the team."

"Or you just want the satisfaction of telling me you were right," Harry squints and leans forward. His features then soothe out. "I'll try it, though. Must be good if you've got a soft spot for it."

"Thank you," Lou says. "Fuck, that's, like, a huge step for us. Almost as big as not being grossed out by the other person's body fluids."

"Is that when you know you're in love?" Harry giggles.

"That's the exact moment, man. All the lovey dovey stuff are a preparation for whether you can stay cool while hearing the other person peeing."

"Wow. When we're done eating we should go to a tree together just to make sure."

"That's just too low-key," Louis pouts. "We should pee on someone's _bike_. Or you could, like, play Juno MacGuff, drink tons of O.J. and pee on a pregnancy stick."

"Ah that's brilliant. What should we name our next kid?"

"Let's name it after our favorite fictional characters."

"Freaking revolutionary," Harry throws the straw at the table in a dramatic way. "I'm so glad to be alive at the same time as you."

Louis opens a big smile, putting his hand over Harry's. The waitress gets to their table shortly after that, smiling friendly. The boys thank her with one voice.

"I like your shirt," Harry says with a mouthful, halfway through the meal. Louis' shirt said:

FUCK OFF

DON'T FUCK OFF

"Thanks!" Lou's face lit up and he tries smirking while taking a bite of the burger. "My friends from Ohio sent it to me on my last birthday. Cool, right?"

"Didn't know you guys were still friends," Harry says, which is somewhat dumb. How _would_ he know? If at least Louis made it easier for him by having _any_ social network, then, all right, but the boy lived in a cave. It was tough to keep up. He had to admit he put Louis Tomlinson on search boxes of all types of websites, though. Just in case.

"Don't think we are. That's why I was so surprised."

"Well, you gotta care a lot about someone to mail them a birthday gift."

"I guess."

"Nah, man. You really do."

"Okay," Louis shrugs. "They sent me some cool shirts, a note and pictures from when I played Danny Zuko at a school play. Guess I've already told you about that."

"You have. I made you sing," he smiles. "This saying suits you so much."

"I know, right?" he flamboyantly sweeps his fringe away from his eye and presses his lips together. "They told me it is from this thing called Tumblr – they said it is fun and scholarly in a way, yet controversial."

"Charlie's got one of these," Harry shrugs, not really knowing what that thing was.

"Sounds like something I wouldn't have the patience to deal with."

"Yeah," Harry laughs. "Charlotte's in too deep. Every time the Wi-Fi at the apartment won't work, she almost has a mental breakdown."

"Well can we blame her."

"What do _you_ use the Internet for?" Harry snorts.

"TV shows?" he raises one eyebrow. "And porn. Just like you."

He doesn't mention Harry's Instagram account because that would imply he found it, and finding it implies looking for it.

Which he didn't, of course. It found him. That's what happened.

"Fair enough."

"You go to Seattle often?" Louis asks and wipes off a drop of sauce from the corner of his lip.

"Not really. Casp is the one who always comes. Plus, Charlotte's in this big fight with grandma."

"'Bout what?"

"She found out my grandma has been sending this cookies shaped like middle fingers to Charlotte's ex-boyfriend for the past few years 'cause he cheated on her, however it is that thirteen-year-olds cheat on each other."

Louis barks a laugh. "I'd be grateful if I was her."

"Me too," Harry smiles. "But the entire neighborhood found out about it as well and now we're the closest to Addams family they've ever known."

"Come on. She's got the temper of Wednesday Addams and you look great in striped shirts."

Harry giggles. "I'll tell Cas this one," he says, putting the dish aside. "Done here."

"Almost," Louis says with a mouthful. "I like Caspar. He's nice."

"He's the best."

"We went for a comic book run together."

"What a little snake. He didn't tell me about that."

"It was no big deal. We just stared at bookshelves while he tried to suck my deepest secrets out."

"Was he successful?"

"Fuck no."

"Aw," Harry pouts. "I'll pay the check," he announces, getting up, and Lou follows his moves instinctively.

"You don't have to."

"'S alright," the boy smiles, lightly pushing Louis back to his chair. "You can pay for the next one."

He gives Louis a little peck on his greasy lips, going inside the restaurant and paying for their late-night dinner. The walk home is not short, but if the boys could think of a longer way home, they'd probably take it. When Harry gets to the gates, he realizes he left his key at the apartment – which was somewhat reasonable, since he stormed off earlier. He calls home until somebody picks up. Cas shows up at the front gate dressed in boxers and socks, roaring loudly to scare the cuddling slash kissing slash noisy couple standing on the sidewalk.

Louis scratches his head, completely embarrassed, but Cas couldn't care less, fist-bumping the blue-eyed boy and announcing he'll wait for a cab with them.

"You should stay, bro. We're having a wild slumber party. Gabby's there, Josh, Char, Axel, Colleen."

"Are they?" Harry furrows his eyebrows.

"Thanks, man, but I gotta get home," he gives Cas a closed-lips smile. "And here's my cab," he signals for the yellow car and gets inside.

"Show up soon!" Cas says and waves. Lou waves back and throws Harry a quick kiss.

The two best friends take the stairs and Cas dances like a dork the entire time. His goofy celebration dance.

"Don't even get me started," he messes Caspar's blond hair, opening the door carefully so he wouldn't wake anyone up.

The slumber party was exactly what Harry expected it to be: not wild at all. Everybody was sort of piled up and being weird even in their sleep.

When the boy lays down, eyes wide with wonder, it's like his body is stuck in this roundabout process of making stardust flow recklessly through his veins. And he laughs; he laughs because he cannot believe he kissed Louis' lips again and so many times, and because that made both of them happy; he laughs because they talked with armors down and walked side by side and looked into each other's eyes and got butterflies on their stomach. Because it wasn't like Louis had never been bad: he had been, intensely and menacingly, but he was forgiven now. He laughs, and even asleep he suspects he's still laughing, because his boy was back. His boy, his, his, _mine._

 

⊹ i'll update soon, loves! hope you're all good and happy.


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